International Digital Marketing

Is it time to pull the plug and say farewell to your company website? The magazine AdAge has published some very worrying numbers concerning consumer behaviour and traffic between brands’ Facebook pages and brands’ official websites. It seems like websites are losing out to Facebook pages.

Looking at the chart below, we can see that very big brands gather millions of “likes”. For example Starbucks and Coca Cola have more than 10 millions of fans.

On the other hand, the traffic of the Coke U.S. website has decreased 40% in one year. Same story with the Oreo brand, which is the number 3 brand page on Facebook, with 8.7 million “likes” growing at a rate of 71 000 new fans each a day. The U.S. traffic of their website NabiscoWorld.com has decreased from 1.2 million in July 2009 to 321 000 in July 2010. Starbucks and its 12.7 facebook fans bring stable traffic to their website, yet taking in account their big international growth, should not the traffic be increasing instead?

What comes to the consumer behaviour, numbers do not get better. According to a new research by digital consultancy Beyond, 23% of consumers prefer receiving information from brands via Facebook, instead of a brand’s website (21%) or company blog (3%). This movement is encouraged by marketers who do not doubt anymore promoting their Facebook page instead of the official site. For example in France, certain brands such as Orangina and Sony sign their TV commercial with a “facebook.com/nameofthepromotion”. Other brands such and Ben&Jerry have announced they will simply stop emailing, using in the future Facebook newsfeed instead.

While Facebook is becoming the biggest relationship marketing tool for brands, it seems like that instead of increasing traffic to the company website, Facebook is actually absorbing it. Marketers across the globe are wondering whether their brand websites will disappear  and if there will still be a need for an official website in five years. Will the users still visit the company websites or will they only use Facebook and apps to check the news and offers?

“So is it time to turn off the web site?” asks Beyond’s MD EMEA Nick Rappolt.

No. The dependence between Facebook and websites will increase, but especially from a global point of view – there really is life beyond Facebook. Only promoting a product in one social platform decreases the possibilities to reach all the potential audience out there. Most of the world is still not on Facebook and having seen the rise and fall of various hot, “world changing” platforms it would not be the most brilliant idea to kill the only secure place brand has in the Internet – the official webpage.

From SEO perspective, using only Facebook Page would drop  search engine results considerably, pushing brand lower in ranking and decreasing amount of quality leads.

It also should not be forgotten that a marketer is still the master of his own website, controlling its structure, organization, design, content, SEO, marketing operations, customer data etc., while Facebook Page is defined…well by Facebook. Do brands really want to become fully dependent on Facebook and its rules, allowing it to control, restrict and have their say on the content, design and campaigns? I do not think so.

To stop the trend, start using Facebook to drive traffic to the official website. Create a Facebook competition which requires finding clues around your website, announce you will publish the competition winners in your official website, tell your fans about a special offer they can download from the website etc. It is also possible to integrate e-mail marketing with social media, increasing brand’s own customer database.

Facebook is just another way to promote an official website. More importance you give the platform, less power you have over your own campaigns. Do not let tail wag the dog.

Coca-Cola and its brand Dr. Pepper wanted to take advantage of the Facebook wave, ignore the more traditional display advertising and take the campaign to the next level. The company wanted to reach teenagers and realized their target was bored on their friends’ “normal” status updates. That age group was constantly searching for something new. Therefore, the company created an application together with the agency Lean Mean Fighting Machine, which allows Dr Pepper to take control of teenagers’ Facebook status updates.

The promotion was the following:

• You let Dr Pepper take over your status updates, the more embarrassing they are the more entries into the weekly prize draw of £1000 you get
• The more embarrassing they are, more points they’re worth
• The more points you earn, the more likely you are to win the 1000£
• You can make 1 a day, and it will appear on your page sometime in the next 24h
  • 1 point: mildly embarrassing
  • 3 points: embarrassing
  • 5 points: properly embarrassing

These messages were posted in user’s status and could be seen by their Facebook friends. Innovative campaign, but following the brand’s slogan: what’s the worst that could happen?

Well, it’s simple: to be blamed by the parents of targeting their children with references to a famous porn movie, be forced to apologize publicly and cancel the massive Dr. Pepper campaign.

It all started when a mom protested after seeing that her 14-year-old daughter’s Facebook/Dr. Pepper status made direct reference to a hardcore pornographic film. After trying to brush it under the carpet, Coca-Cola had to finally apologize in public and stop the campaign. The company stated that the offending status had been approved by them, but they did not realize its true meaning. When the campaign was pulled off, the 160,000 teenagers who had signed up were not happy.

That’s it? No.

Coca-Cola has stopped all ongoing advertising work with the agency behind the campaign and is seriously considering terminating the contract. That is going to hurt, since the agency Lean Mean Fighting Machine had just won the Coke Zero brand ad account.

This is an example when a great idea can go so wrong if everything is not well monitored and in control. It is understandable that the quantity of phrases was enormous, however it was an error not to check and read through them.

Small things can have big consequences in Social Media.

With 43% of South Koreans maintaining an online profile or blog site and 90% of Korean twenty-somethings logging into a social network daily, the market seems like a perfect Social Media playground. Searching for a stronger position in Asian markets, Coke decided to experiment in South Korea with a new strategy. Instead of one-off promotions, Coke preferred to study their participants and reach out for them when they knew each influencer’s tastes and interests.

“Lots of companies are engaged in blog marketing nowadays, and we, as bloggers, do get lots of requests,” admitted Eun Ju Kim, one of Coke’s Korean mommy bloggers. “But Coca-Cola Korea was different. The company really listened to us from the beginning. The company fully allowed me to enjoy the area that I was most interested with and share my experience through my blog. Lots of people ask me how to become a Coke blogger.”

To build a sustainable blogger outreach program the company wanted to find out how Coke could better communicate with local bloggers, especially young mothers.These influencers were introduced to the company through special blogger-only events and their opinion and advice was asked. Was it easy? No. Did it need patience? Yes.

It did not happen overnight: Coke has devoted 2 years to build relationships with powerful bloggers who are important local “digital influencers.” The company contacted these 8 “mommy bloggers” tagged as “Coke friends” back in 2008, and they voluntarily become Coke evangelists connecting Coke with Koreans who visited their blog.

“These women are not simply in charge of a onetime event or project but are vitally important stakeholders,” declared Kenth Kaerhoeg, group communications director for Coca-Cola’s Pacific Group in Hong Kong. “Each blogger has been paid careful attention to, various brand and company information appropriate to each blogger’s interest and inclination has been continuously provided, involving them into a variety of marketing and corporate events, therefore enabling them to share unique and exciting Coke experiences.”

After two years Korean families are talking more about (and drinking) Coke. The company is planning to expand the blogger dinner parties into larger programs involving also young bloggers also in other Asian markets. The company has already created social-media programs in China, Singapore, Australia and Japan, particularly to promote Coke in the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.