Facebook and Retailers

At the core of the question lies the purpose and motivation for consumers participating in a Facebook experience. Or is it? One school of thought would argue that in order for a retailer to maximize the potential for engaging an audience on Facebook, the communication/marketing used needs to align with the critical elements of the Facebook community: who, why, and what. Who is there? Why are they there? What do they do while they are there?

Following this approach, a retailer must first seek to understand the community, which in and of itself is as useless a statement as "seek to understand their consumer". Yes, it's a good idea. But a retailer doesn't have "a" consumer, and Facebook isn't "a" community. It's a very large portal with what are rapidly becoming as many splinter communities are there are in the general population. So talking about a monolithic "community" is silly, and self defeating. That helps, because it limits the retailer to "why" and "what". The "who" is now the same sets of "whom" the retailer tries to reach with any and all of it's normal marketing messages.

The critical component of retailer activity on Facebook revolves around content. Content is driven by "why" and "what", made specific and appropriate for the platform in question. And make no mistake. Facebook is a platform (at least for retailers). So it comes down to content. Retail Facebook pages are going to attract fans, be sticky, and act in accordance with marketing strategic efforts to the extent that the content supports those things. So understanding the "what" and "why" become very relevant. Approaching Facebook from any other point of view is almost arrogant. Given the vast numbers of people on Facebook, if someone creates something, creates awareness that it exists, then some appreciable level of exposure will occur.

Next post will take a look at what some retailers are doing in the content arena, and analyze how Facebook-appropriate those efforts appear to be.