Join the conversation on our Fan Page

This semester I’m teaching a course at Emerson College in Boston entitled Social Media and Marketing. If this topic interests you, there are many ways you can participate. The easiest is joining our Facebook fan page, “Why Social Media Matters.” My goal is to contribute to meaningful discourse about the role of social media in our lives and our businesses. Feel free to drop on by and stay for a while. I’m going to blog quite frequently about it as well.

One of the things I love about social media is how simple it can be. Sure, you can make social media complex. You can measure metrics, use social marketing models and chart the growth of communities over time. However, you can also create one powerful idea. An idea that doesn’t require anything but others willing to play along.

Take the idea of Follow Friday for example. Hundreds of thousands participate weekly in nominating their friends to be followed on Twitter. The concept is simple, and the participation is contagious. To play, you just need a Twitter account. What if we applied the concept of Follow Friday to our lives? Maybe we’d call it “Have you met” Tuesdays. And we would share the great people we know with others we cared about.

Why does social media matter to you?

Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO asked for feedback on Best Buy’s  fan page.
Prior to visiting the page, I envisioned it. Here’s what I had in mind:

• Stories. A collection of customer stories and conversations about products they carry.
• Contests. Customers provide the most compelling ways they would use products Best Buy carries. The most positive votes win the product featured that day. This may result in fans asking their friends to join the community to vote for their comment.
• Coupons. Sent to Facebook, mobile, Twitter, the moon…anywhere customers can access them easily.
• Flash sales. Featured products with a highly limited supply available via Facebook for a 20 minute window.
• Engagement between Best Buy and its fan about how their products create a happier you. Songs, questions, polls, etc.

What I saw when I arrived at the page:

• 400k+ fans conversing with no moderation mostly sharing positive comments like, “Geek squad baby,” “Bought a laptop today,” “Great company!” A few exceptions describing in-store experiences.
• Many fans mentioned competitors including Microcenter and online sites. These sentiments received no comments.
• Questions that Best Buy asked received 100s of comments from mobile apps & plasmas. Others promoted upcoming events.
• Best Buy seemed less than vigilant in responding to fan comments. For example, questions that ended with “Who can I talk to about that?” were unanswered.
• Their innovative Facebook tabs included ways to search products, ask your Facebook friends for gift ideas (and create passive impressions for Best Buy) and links to other Best Buy initiatives.

Barry, consider these examples for Best Buy.

• consult the Vitamin Water fan page. A more moderated page makes fans feel they are apart of a community rather than a free for all.
• Consider the Gossip Girl fan page. Their discussion board is exceptional. Check out the “Team Blair vs. Team Serena,” topic. Consider creating something similar with two rival Best Buy products.
• 1-800-flowers. They offer an incentive to become a fan and effective, on-going promotions that engages their customers including birthday flower giveaways.

Facebook fan pages need vision. Comments, moderation, user generated content are the evidence of that vision being realized. I would invite Best Buy to articulate its vision and ask 10 experts in the space to analyze their current page. This will reveal the disconnects.