Social brands clearly don't become so because of their social media strategy. They are so because of who they are. It's the fundamental misunderstanding that make those that call themselves "social media experts" questionable at best. The moment you label yourself by that name, you've removed yourself from the parts of the conversation that actually make brands work in the space. Instead they become tasked with building facebook pages, resizing twitter backgrounds until they fit, randomly following anyone who unfortunately utters a phrase remotely related to the products they sell.
And so I'm not misunderstood, much of that is still important. Understanding the nomenclature, the ability to differentiate and remain interesting in social spaces is critical. But doing so in a vacuum is merely a series of band-aids, not dissimilar to a brands sales spike during peaks in an advertising cycle. GM may know a thing or two about that.
But 20 of the top 200 fan pages on facebook are brand-related, minus entertainment, and that may sound pretty good. 10% would actually be more than I expected, frankly.
But a closer look would reveal a slew of unofficial pages fed by their fans, random memes, stuff like that. 11 of them are official, the largest of which was a true fan page that was taken over by the brand (in a good way). And of the top 20, only 16 companies are actually represented. Anyway, interesting to see how basic the vast majority of these fan pages actually are. Most didn't need to be tricked up too much, people wanted to share them already.
Point being - solving the social media problem means solving the social problem, which doesn't have much to do with social media.
8. Coca-Cola 3,462,807 (unofficial, then given to or purchased by brand)
10. Nut ella 3,205,591 (unofficial)
18. Pringles 2,774,256 (official, doing some videos, etc.)
40. Starbucks Coffee Company 2,307,465 (official, good feed)
55. adidas Originals 1,944,196 (official)
61. McDonald's 1,870,132 (unofficial)
100. Toblerone 1,496,941 (unofficial)
105. Nike Shoes 1,463,321 (unofficial)
109. Converse All Star 1,450,969 (unofficial)
112. CONVERSE 1,418,670 (unofficial)
120. REESE'S 1,380,962 (official, doing some interesting stuff with college program)
132. OREO cookies 1,334,269 (official)
139. Starbucks Frappuccino 1,297,731 (official)
158. PUMA 1,212,972 (official)
172. ipods 1,175,028 (unofficial)
178. oreos 1,166,410 (unofficial)
187. H&M 1,133,591 (official, applications)
188. MTV 1,133,246 (official)
189. MTV 1,129,701 (unofficial)
194. Red Bull 1,103,357 (official, good feed, applications)
Ranking via PageData Photo via Nicky Deez
I remember being surprised at how basic the Red Bull fan page was. And then I realised - it's not about what it does, it's about what my membership says to the rest of my social network.
Posted by: Gavin Heaton | June 21, 2009 at 07:43 AM
Exactly. Red Bull found ways to remain interesting or meaningful themselves, so their facebook success is merely a symptom of larger successes.
Posted by: Paul McEnany | June 21, 2009 at 06:39 PM