Favourite Facebook Fan Pages: Case Studies & How to Get It Right with Teens

Callan Green has just published a great post on Mashable about brands who are really getting it right in Facebook Fan Pages. Sure, she says, “anyone can build a fan page in under 10 minutes, and some big brands may even attract fans without any real effort. But even if you have 3 million fans, if the extent of their involvement with your brand is that at one point they “became a fan,” is that really benefiting you?”

She’s listed five really good examples of Fan Pages:

• Pringles (viral videos)
• Coca-Cola (authentic message and respect to fanbase)
• Starbucks (great status updates)
• Adidas (linking to social media campaigns)
• Red Bull (incorporation of Twitter into Fan Page)

Invited comments below her post are pulling in other good examples too, especially of lesser known and not-for-profits organizations. I’m sure the list will have grown by now, so I suggest you go through to her post – oh, but not before you’ve finished reading mine, of course ...

To make the most of Facebook Fan pages (or Bebo, any other social network), you need to actively engage with your fans. Callan advises “creative content, two-way communication, active discussion boards, videos and images, and a fun and casual tone to match the medium….. you have to know your audience, you have to provide quality, regular content, you need to encourage discussion and engagement, and you must not take yourself too seriously.”

Given the platform, there’s a high chance you may be trying to engage with tweens and teens – so there’s an equally high chance you might be getting it badly wrong. From eModeration’s recent white paper Using Community and Interactive Advertising to Engage Tweens and Teens:

Carol Phillips, in her blog ‘Millennial marketing’ explains why ‘brands make poor friends’. Social media and online communities are all about people talking to each other; a brand encroaching on this territory can be viewed as out of place as a grandparent at a sleep-over. Phillips, herself a mother of ‘millennials’ – roughly defined as those who were pre-teen at the turn of the century - quotes her own research into how young adults view brands who attempt to ‘befriend’ them on Facebook or Twitter. The results? At best, brand invisibility - simply not being noticed by teens, or ignored; at worst, a lasting lack of credibility by doing something considered to be deeply ‘uncool’.

So, if you are targeting 11-17 year old, how do you get it right? Again, from our white paper:

1. Consider what you’re trying to achieve. Is your community / virtual world / campaign promoting something that this market really wants?
2. Put some personality into your efforts. But don’t try to be a ‘cool kid’ – it’ll be like watching your Dad dance at a wedding.
3. Be credible. You want your campaign to have enough ‘social currency’ for a teenager to want their friends to see (on your Facebook page, for example) that they’ve downloaded an app, become a fan of X brand, or used Y widget.
4. Interact. Brand advertising campaigns are no longer about pushing one-way messages on a billboard, but are all about interaction and engagement.
5. Create a space or campaign that is authentic, not over-branded, and is engaging to all senses. Multi-sensory campaigns that incorporate video, audio and user-generated content are all important.
6. Be useful. If you’re developing an application or widget as part of your brand campaign, make it useful. The nature of viral marketing has changed, from ‘look how clever this is’, to ‘look how funny this is’, to ‘look what I can do with this’.
7. Know your niche. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Set a style and personality that fits your audience.
8. Consider cause marketing. Is there a cause that your audience will take on, that will really make a difference to their lives?
9. Get the language and tone right. Be authentic. Keep your message short and simple to cater to this group’s short attention span. Don’t patronise and don’t pretend to be something you’re not.
10. Lastly, but arguably, most importantly: make your community, or campaign, safe. If you’re hosting a community, remember that no space where teenagers and young adults congregate should be unsafe. MODERATE IT!