Having a fan page on Facebook may bring benefits for your company, and there ends the article thank you for reading.
Oh, you want a little more? Well many companies have their own page on Facebook to gain fans. They may then provide those fans with news. The whole area falls within the business and marketing of its brand through social networks, more than it is to call attention to products. Social media is used more successfully when it helps increase brand awareness and brand education.
Is all of this marketing on Facebook having any positive effect at all?
It’s all fair and good having people saying they love your brand, but if they are not buying the product, then what is the point. A brand may sometimes become an icon that people simply don’t buy. Like the times when the puppet mascot outgrows the brand. Like Jonny Vegas and his monkey becoming so popular, that when the business they were advertising went bust, they were hired to advertise PG Tips tea. Same again with the puppet “flat Eric”, who sold more singles than he did jeans.
The business newspaper of the American elite Harvard University (Harvard Business Review) has tried to address this matter in a short project (approved and tested) about the effect of a Facebook fan site on sales.
The information was collected using a questionnaire (I’m not giving you the type of survey, validity, consistency etc. because I will fall asleep). Before creating a fan page, questionnaires were sent out 13,270 people on the e-mail list of Unternehmnes. They had 689 responses.
The team (Harb-Bus-Rev) started a fan page on Facebook and all the people on the e-mail list were invited to become a fan. Over the next three months the fan page of the bakery chain they chose to work with was continuously updated, with news, special offers, reviews, and photos. After the period of time another 13,270 questionnaires were sent out again. 1067 responses were noted (including current fans, but also persons who did not ultimately become a fan on Facebook).
The results of the study showed that Facebook consumer behavior improved. Those who became a fan of Facebook were (suddenly) better customers. Although the amount they spent per purchase was about the same amount, they did however attend more often. So the results were increased visits but not increased spending. They weren’t all of a sudden buying the more expensive pies.
There was a 20% increase, in repeat visits, shown by fans of the Facebook page. This was more than the people who answered the questionnaire who were not Facebook wall fans. The word-of-mouth advertising had also been increased by the Facebook fan page followers.
So if you work your fan page correctly and do not invest too much time into it (too much time will cost you money) then you may be able to increase your footfall though keeping your brand “current” in your customers minds.
