Facebook’s IPO might have fizzled, but it’s not time to delete your page
All the chat these days around the water cooler is about how the LA Kings are heading to the Stanley Cup finals (hey, I’m in Los Angeles). Oh, and how the Facebook IPO has fizzled.
A lot of people want to point to the poor performance of the IPO launch to say, “See, this Facebookie thing is just a fad.”
But don’t delete those Facebook pages and profiles just yet.
No matter what the naysayers say, Facebook is not just a fad.
Take a look at Facebook’s most recent statistics:
- 901 million monthly active users at the end of March 2012.
- Approximately 80% of our monthly active users are outside the U.S. and Canada.
- 526 million daily active users on average in March 2012.
- 488 million monthly active users who used Facebook mobile products in March 2012, and more than 500 million mobile monthly active users as of April 20, 2012.
- During March 2012, on average 398 million users were active with Facebook on at least six out of the last seven days.
- More than 125 billion friend connections on Facebook at the end of March 2012.
- On average more than 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook per day in the three months ended March 31, 2012.
- An average of 3.2 billion Likes and Comments generated by Facebook users per day during the first quarter of 2012.
- More than 42 million Pages with ten or more Likes at the end of March 2012.
- Facebook is available in more than 70 languages.
Until we see the USERS fleeing Facebook, there is something there there.
Until we see the BRANDS fleeing Facebook, there is something there there.
In fact, one trend I am intently following is how the brands, large and small, are no longer promoting their company URLs in print, television and radio advertising. They are, however, pushing consumers to their Facebook pages.
Why? I am going on the supposition that a person cannot interact with a Website. They can, however, interact with a Facebook page.
You cannot deny that Facebook has fundamentally shifted how the world and its people communicate with one another. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it’s not going back.
When a user comments, likes or shares a Facebook page or post, it is shared on the user’s personal wall. The users are, in essence, providing that page (the brand) a referral or a tacit approval.
For instance, when I clicked “like” and provided a comment for Hamburger Mary’s Legendary Bingo Night (oh, this is NOT your grandmother’s church bingo night), that was shared on my wall, and my 600 or so friends could see that too.
Now, instead of just me and the Sports Dude going to play drag queen bingo this Sunday night, we have a table of ten going.
That’s money in the bank for Hamburger Mary’s and the charitable organization of the night. And it was free.
Which is the problem for Facebook. They need to turn that valuable activity into cold, hard cash.
Wall Street might not understand how to monetize Facebook (yet), but it will happen.
All I am saying is that before you write off Facebook and social media, give it some time. Social media is still a new medium. After all, Zuckerberg is ONLY 28-years old.
If the brands continue to flock to Facebook for the value they find in their pages, then Facebook needs to sell access to that.
I assure you, paying several hundred or thousands of dollars to run a Facebook page is NOTHING for these brands. Just think how much we used to pay for yellow and white page advertising.
Once those brilliant marketing majors figure out how to measure the ROI of Facebook advertising and user activity for the brands, then Facebook will be able to package that into a product to sell for itself. (Which, by the way, I think will focus around page interaction rather than straight click-throughs of the banner ads).
And before I close this out with a brilliant, and perhaps witty recap, I just want to point out that while the press made a huge to do over GM dropping their Facebook advertising, they seemed to downplay that just two days later GM dropped their Super Bowl ads as well. I have a feeling this strategy has more to do with the health of GM’s stock price than Facebook’s.
So what does all of this mean to law firms and the legal industry?
It’s a trend to follow. And definitely one NOT to ignore.
Personally, I NEVER look to other law firms for trends to follow. I look to the brands, and then see how I can interpret what they are doing for the legal services industry as a whole, and my firm specifically. Some trends interpret easily, and others are more nuanced.
However, considering that our firms are representing these companies, these brands, it is important for us to understand their business models, how those are changing, and how they are now conducting business in a socially connected world.
I agree Heather. I just finished attending, and LiveTweeting, my 2nd Facebook Page webinar in two weeks because I believe we continue to have a tool that provides huge potential for our firms to engage with clients and potential clients.
It is a tendency to poo-poo a tool, business, site or person that we don’t want to like or engage in because we don’t have time, or they don’t fit our personal style, but that doesn’t mean that is a wise business decision.
Not having time to market in those media where the community-at-large is spending an enormous amount of time is not a good strategy at all. It is sticking our heads in the sand, and hoping the wave rushes over and back before anyone notices the implications.
It’s time to spend time figuring out how to integrate Facebook Profiles and Pages in to our relationship-building efforts.
“I look to the brands, and then see how I can interpret what they are doing for the legal services industry as a whole, and my firm specifically.” Great approach. This is something that every legal marketer should be doing.
Heather, I absolutely agree that marketers should not delete social media from their mix. I do believe that beyond NASDAQ’s dithering around and WAY too many shares being offered, there are a number of other factors in play here. Firstly, someone should have given them and their issuers and underwriters a sanity check on their valuation methodology which was preposterous.
Secondly, I hope the SEC will take a hard look at the “quiet period” and roadshow activities.
Perhaps most of all, one of the reasons it will be hard-pressed to utilize the advertising model for a primary revenue stream a la Google is simply this. It is not Google. Users go to Google to SEARCH for something, so the various relevant forms of advertising are creating customers, potential customers and brand awareness in people who have already demonstrated an interest in that type of product or service. On the other hand, users go to Facebook to connect with family, friends and colleagues. They not there searching to consider or buy a product or service.
And although major companies may have seemingly huge resources to spend on advertising, in most cases, they are very evaluative about how that money is spent. I think it’s too easy being a legal marketer to think they have too large budgets to be judicious. Marketing, even in huge companies is a closely scrutinized commodity and effective CMOs are very cautious and do ongoing assessments, pre- and post- testing to analyze effectiveness on an ongoing basis.
Do I think that Facebook is doomed to be in the weeds forever, searching for revenue streams? No, I think there is an abundance of smart people there. Do they need to be more self-inventing and less content to mimick other Internet models of making money? Absolutely. They just need to go forth and create.
Diane – so excited to have you participating on my humble, little blog. You are such a great thought leader … always love what you have to say. Just don’t make me look stupid
Heather, that would not be possible, you are way too smart. And I admire you even more for putting yourself out there by creating and writing this blog.
Absolutely agree Heather. The reality is we are increasingly shifting to a relationship/experience economy. Facebook has value but not so much as a revenue vehicle more so as a social change agent. Social is a marathon not a sprint like search. Wall Street (the old regime) seeks a purely financial economy & values the bottom line. Social is more complex & as we move more toward a relationship/experience economy that which we place value on will continue to evolve. Those that can offer currency across economies will find greater opportunities & new kinds of success. The metrics are still evolving but the investments tend to payoff for those that have moved beyond “why?” & instead asked “how?” while jumping in & staying the course. Stay the course, just course correct as needed.
Heather, you beat me to the punch. Facebook, like it or not is a success in the sense that it is trading on the commodity of relationships. relating to people and community is as old as earth itself. It is not a fad. People like Facebook because it is the personal web. It makes the web relevant to the masses. Popular culture. Now, corporations can try to make it a broadcast venue (click on our ads), but it is not, as you point out the most effective approach. . It is pull not push. I have no doubt that Facebook will evolve. It will find the revenue it needs. Maybe not today, but soon enough. I, too, believe there is something magical that can’t go backwards. Even Steve Jobs and the Apple organization had its set backs. More dramatic than this little Facebook bump, and survived another day to flourish and enrich human lives with its products.