A Facebook Like is similiar to Honking for the Guy in a Chicken Suit
After my post last week about Social Media in Construction, I thought I should finish a thought I made in passing a few years ago when Facebook changed their Fan Pages to Like Pages. Facebook wanted to lessen the need for a relationship with a brand by changing all of the Fan Pages to Like Pages. This way, your profile shows pages you like instead of saying what you’re a fan of. To me, this is like honking for the guy in the chicken suit on the side of the road – its fun, but requires no engagement. The chicken draws attention and that awareness may make me pull in today or some day down the road, but it doesn’t make me care about that brand.
I loved the term “Fan” because people love their favorite brands. That’s why people stand in line overnight for an iPhone, mob celebrities, and tattoo logos on their body. When creating a social media (or even a marketing strategy), I suggest one of your goals is to convert buyers into raving fans. It is better to have 50 raving fans and 50 people that don’t like your brand than to have 100 people with luke warm feelings for you or that don’t really care.
Seth Godin, the marketing guru, calls these ultimate brand champions as Sneezers because they go around talking about that brand and infect others. Its a great visual of making things viral, but sneezers can be a rough word to use with the CEO, so I prefer to use raving fans.
When marketing your company, via social media or other channels, look for ways to build your fan base and create raving fans. Then empower them to “sneeze” on others. They are your best brand advocates because they are passionate about your brand and they’ve bought from you so they can tell others about the reasons why they bought, used, & recommend your company.