Is Facebook Fan marketing Dead?: Video

Welcome to eighth week of iProspect TV! In this week’s episode, Kevin speaks to the Áine Osborne, a digital account Manager and Facebook expert from Aegis Media partner, Carat Ireland.

In this video Áine shares her thoughts about the recent declining organic reach for brands on Facebook. Watch this video to find out why this is a big deal, what this means for businesses and brands using Facebook and to decide if you think Facebook fan marketing is really dead.

Video Transcription

Kevin: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of iProspect TV. Today I've got with me a colleague from part of the Aegis group. This is Áine Osborne and she is a Digital Account Manager from Carat Ireland who has done lots of cool work on Facebook for brands like Lucozade and UPC and helping them with their Facebook strategy. And that's the reason why we brought her into today because there has been some recent changes with Facebook that quite a lot of people are talking about. I want to grill Áine on those and see what it means for brands and businesses.

Kevin: So Áine, are you able to tell us what the recent changes were for Facebook.

Áine: Sure, basically over the last couple of months, brands have noticed that their organic interactions have really decreased. So previously Facebook claimed that 16% of your fan base would see any of your organic posts. However, recently we've seen that drop back to anywhere between 1 and 3 percent.
So for a long time Facebook were really denying this but they've come out maybe in the last week or so and they have said that acutally yes this is true and in the future they would see brands paying for all of their posts so there will really be no more organic reach going forward.

Kevin: So why is that such a big deal?

Áine: I suppose over the past couple of years brands have actually invested a lot of money in gaining likes and trying to build up a strong follower base. So now brands are annoyed because basically there's going to be a double tax. So, they spent all the money recruiting and now they're going to have to spend more money again in order to be able to talk to them. Also, when you step back and look at it for smaller brands, they aren't going to have a chance to compete in this space.
It's either because they're just not going to be able to go up against the bigger brands that have the bigger budgets.

Kevin: So what else does this mean for businesses and brands when they're thinking about next year and where to spend their money or invest their time and energy.

Áine: Yes, well I suppose brands really need to make a decision now at this point what they're going to do. So, they have the facts in front of them. But if they're going to continue on with Facebook they're going to have to put a substantial marketing budget aside in order to be able engage with their fans. Other than that then, they're going to have to look at other social media networks, maybe Twitter and see if they're going to invest in followers. Or LinkedIn, which is really making great strides from a business to business point of view.

Personally, I think Google+ is really going to be a big player in 2014. We are already seeing a lot of its benefits from an SEO and search point of view. And as well as that, brands are using hangouts in a really innovative way. Only last week, they launched their first ever advertising format which looks really really good, really engaging. I think it's going to work really well for brands.

Kevin: So if I was a small business and €1000, would I be better off getting Facebook fans or getting followers on Twitter?

Áine: I think probably if you're a small business, to start out with you're probably still best off with investing it in Facebook just really from a visual point of view.Well depending on your target audience, Facebook still has the largest following so from that point of view, I would still put it there. But by the end of 2014 my answer may have changed.

Kevin: So thank you very much for that Áine, some great insights into what's happening with Facebook and definitely something to think about for the New Year. This will be our last episode before Christmas. We really hope you've enjoyed it. We'd love to hear your comments below. This is quite a controversial topic, so please let us know what you think. Where would you spend that one thousand euro? Would you spend it on Facebook? Would you spend it on Twitter? Would you spend it on PPC maybe or SEO? Let us know your thoughts. Until next time, hope you have a great Christmas and we will see you soon in the New Year. Take Care!

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