In mid-February, Ad Age published an article entitled “Deals May Get You in the Door, but They Won’t Build Relationships.” It includes a discussion of data showing that Facebook fans who Like a page in exchange for a coupon or access to some sort of sweepstakes (called an Incentivized Like in industry parlance) are less likely to engage with that brand than someone who follows the brand for other reasons. According to the article:
Brands that build fan-bases using sweepstakes “…end up with a very difficult time trying to get those fans to engage,” said Justin Kistner, director of social products at analytics firm WebTrends. “They were never with your brand in the first place. They just wanted a chance to win that iPad,” he said. “We call it garbage fans.”
Why is this so important? Because with social media, people frequently focus entirely on the top line numbers, because it’s much simpler to manage to a hard, measurable metric than a softer qualitative concept such as engagement. For example, a marketing director might decide: “We have x number of fans, and I want x + 1,000 by next month.” With a simple, clear goal, the team charges forward and finds a way (sometimes any way) to get 1,000 new fans in a month. The simplest, tried-and-true methods include contests, sweepstakes and similar mechanisms (and there’s nothing wrong with any of them). The trouble is that often the real, unstated goal wasn’t just to get another thousand fans but to build some kind of non-transactional relationship with them. And when the recently acquired fans never comment, Like a post, or view that Facebook page again the brand is disappointed.
Organizations with overly-tactical goals like this generally fail to
engage. This word is now so widely-used that sometimes it’s hard to remember how important it really is when it comes to online communities. Engage is the third wing of the
Dragonfly Model. It follows
Grab Attention, because you need people to be there before you can get them invested in your cause. This is where we differ from Ad Age: an on-brand contest can be a great way to grab attention. What brands forget is that they can’t just stop there! A free iPad will lure someone in, but it takes an authentic message or story to get them to take the next step and actually care.
