Facebook recently disrupted the way its news feed works for “liked” pages. This is to be expected, and is part of the excitement of marketing today; real time response to what people want (or what we think they want). Facebook isn’t the only social media space changing the rules on how brands can communicate with their fans. Remember, while you own your website as a platform for communication, you’re only “renting” your social media space. Brooks Thomas, AT&T’s director of digital and social media, put it this way in a recent article in AdWeek:
Brands will always have more control over owned spaces than rented ones. By and large, I view owned spaces as the farm and rented spaces as the market where you sell the crops—you can personalize your stall, but you can’t design the market.”
And personalize we will. Social Media is a more relaxed form of brand communication. So while Facebook and other social media sites may control the framework – we are all free to use it how we will. Free.
Check out this example of how one restaurant is lashing out at Yelp for (allegedly) trying to blackmail them into advertising (allegedly). They launched a campaign for the worst reviews on Yelp, offering 25% discount for 1 star reviews. The results are hilarious, and the owner says it’s working to increase higher paying, loyal customers. Restaurant Wants to be Worst Rated on Yelp. Here are a couple of the reviews, they’re hysterical.
One thing is for sure, people love to have fun on social media. Think about what you’ve shared, or seen shared. Keep that in mind as you churn out social media posts, tweets and pics, and decide where to focus your marketing efforts. Challenge your fans’ creativity, give them a reason to be silly. They will do it, share it, and pass your brand name along with it. If the rules of the game change – change with them and be creative. We are all figuring this out as we go; you, your customers, everyone.
For today, we will leave you with this…
Way to go Sam Adams. Your silly antics landed you some free promotion on a blog that has nothing to do with beer. Who’s thirsty?
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