What I Learned from Summer Camp About Facebook Pages
July 15, 2011
The One Daily Habit to Make Your Social Strategy Sparkle
September 12, 2011
A week ago I got an email from my boss asking if I had heard about the Crock Pot Girls Facebook page. I hadn’t, but I quickly learned 2 things:
- They had grown from zero to almost 750,000 fans in just the prior two weeks (today they have well over a million).
- There was almost no information on who the founders are or how they did it.
Suddenly, everyone in the marketing group, including my boss, was looking to me to explain what happened.
So, did I sweat and fret and struggle to come up with an explanation that would justify why, as the Social Media Director at Cozi, I hadn’t produced in two years what this page had done in just two weeks? Nope. Here’s why:
- Stories like this are the REASON we all have jobs in social media. Just like the David After Dentist YouTube video (now with a staggering 99 million+ views), or the People of Wal-Mart Blog, sometimes stuff just takes off. (Asha Dornfest’s wrote an excellent post highlighting the unpredictability factor in the success of her popular blog, Parenthacks.)
- The kind of lightning-in-a bottle represented by the Crock Pot Girls page makes for a useful story in many ways, but at the end of the day, these stories are few and far between for a good reason: Smart social media is a marathon, not a sprint, and the real value only accrues to your company over time.
- There has already been some speculation on how they did it, and whether it was driven by black hat techniques. Although the page looked decidedly unkosher when I first checked it out, and several of the people producing anecdotal evidence of foul play are people I trust, there is no doubt that the page now has many thousands of legitimate fans too. So, do the origins matter to you as a social media manager? Probably not. (Better to let the consultants and agencies worry about that.) Because at the end of the day, your first goal is to build YOUR page and use it to serve your customers better.
The truth is it doesn’t really help you or your business to stress out about how the Crock Pot Girls got there.
See, I do not believe that social media is a zero sum game; If the Crock Pot Girls have a million+ fans, good for them. Their fan count does not in any way prevent you from continuing to benefit from the excellent Facebook page you’ve already built. One that you use to engage your customers, gather product feedback, develop a nuanced understanding of your audience, deliver great product support, and so much more.
And if your page is NOT doing all those things for your company, the last thing you want to do is spend your time worrying about someone ELSE’s fan count.
But wait! What if you have a crock pot or recipe fan page and website? Isn’t it a zero sum game then? Aren’t they stealing all your customers’ eyeballs?
I have good news for you: If they actually do a good job and make that Crock Pot Girls page super engaging, then they aren’t stealing your customers from you, they are AGGREGATING them for you. You now have the ideal place to park your limited marketing dollars in the form of a super tight and targeted campaign of Facebook ads – to be served exclusively to the fans of the Crock Pot Girls. After all, who is more likely to click “Like” on your crock pot recipe page than someone who already likes a page about crockpot cooking? And if their page sucks and fails? Then they aren’t hurting you are they?
So, go ahead and read about these fun viral hit stories; Heck use ’em in your presentations too. But then go right back to staying focused on what you were doing before your boss asked you about this: build a great page that works for YOUR business goals.
12 Comments
So, your argument is that the way they did what they did doesn’t matter because it doesn’t impact anyone single site/person. I would argue that they may not be hurting a single site’s hits, but they are hurting the integrity of the entire enterprise of social media if they got their original zillion followers through unethical means (I realize that how they did what they did is still unclear). I don’t believe in the ends justifying the means, not matter how little (or much) it impacts me on a person level.
Hi Jeanne, Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I see your point about the possible negative effects if everyone in social media used unethical tricks to get public attention.
My point is simply to think through what this story means for those of us working in social media today.
I’m really not too worried about a larger impact at this point, although I’m willing to admit that if there were hundreds of Crock Pot Girls stories breaking this month, I might have a different take on it. Even so, I can’t imagine that Facebook would stand for the damage that kind of scenario would do to THEIR reputation, and they would probably crack down very swiftly.
Do I need to sweat about my business because of their unethical blackhat tactics, um YES!
As a blogger, business owner and social media enthusiast, I build a lot of time building and maintaining credibility with my audience. If they know that a bot can take over their computer and make them “like” another site without their permission, that is a safety issue. And, as a result it demeans legitimate stuff that I try to do!
Your point on aggregating the audience is great BUT I don’t want an aggregated audience that have no clue they “liked” a page. That won’t increase engagement with me. It’s like having a subscriber list of 100,000 but if only 10% participate (or buy something) do the other 90% even matter? How can one engage with fake “likes” and even fake Facebook profiles. Where is the ROI for my time in creating a valuable product for them if they aren’t even real?
I would think as a social media person you would realize that can affect what you are trying to do for your clients. If your clients think gaining “likes” and using an aggregated list that have a lot of fake people is valuable, then you have hit the jackpot! But, don’t forget, it’s called “social” media for a reason. People are willingly participating, engaging and buying. If a computer can do it for you, then there’s nothing social about it.
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for stopping by.
To be clear, I agree with you that a page full of “likes”garnered without the “likers” consent is not a great place for any kind of marketing. My point is that it’s not going to hurt you that much either way, because there are two poosibilies:
1, The page is legit, and thus a good place to park ads
2. The page is fake, in which case, who cares?
Do you really think your fans are going to be upset at YOU because of this? If your page is any good, I highly doubt it. they might be upset at Facebook, but not at your particular business. Indeed, they may even be MORE likely to stick with you because they already know you are the real deal and they can trust you. At least, that’s how I choose to see it.
I do hear you that it can be very upsetting to see unethical people playing on our stage. I just think the most productive thing to do about it is keep doing it right.
Carol, I truly think my fans would be outraged if they realized I used a bot to trick their friends to “like” my page. Not to mention the fact that using a bot can create issues with their own security and privacy settings.
And if the page is fake, I care. I care about what it will do to our community and I care about what impressions my readers have as a result of knowing that it was fake to begin with.
Here’s a perfect example. I thought the Cock Pot Girls were legitimately gaining fans. I emailed them last week and gave them some unsolicited advice and suggested they grab the twitter handle AND they did. I wanted to help them. I trusted that it was truly 3 moms who loved their crock pots.
Now that the stories are out about the bots. While the girls themselves may have had no clue, they know something is up now. I don’t trust them. And if I don’t trust them, then my readers can feel the same way about me and what I do. They may second guess what I have done to grow the community that I have created. It devalues the hard work of social media professionals in so many ways.
To suggest that your clients should take advantage of the low CPM/CPC rates baffles me. Do brands really want to be associated with something that isn’t trustworthy because it’s cheap advertising? And I know a lot of brands like cheap advertising (hello, they think they can buy bloggers’ raving product reviews).
Tell me which brands want to partner with an untrustworthy resource and I”ll tell you which brands I will never work with – period! Oh, wait…I got one answer for you: Better Homes & Gardens PR does. It’s ridiculous and THEY lose credibility from our community as a result of either not doing the due diligence or just wanting to take advantage of those “likes” and hurt their client in the end!
The bottom line is this comes down to credibility and trust. I can’t trust something that isn’t honest. I have values. Those were simply vocalized a bit more seeing how all of this had gone down.
Andrea,
First I’m sorry these people took your advice and made you feel “taken”. I hate when that happens!
I am definitely not advocating that you (or anyone) buy ads on a page that you believe to be fake. Only that if it IS fake, it really doesn’t change the overall strategy and goals of legit practitioners right now.
It sure will be interesting when the whole story comes out though, and I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if Facebook comes under some pressure to address and wrongdoing that is found.
People of Walmart and unique YouTube videos offer content. If you looked at this fan page last week around 8/30 there wasn’t much content of any kind, now youre seeing fans add recipes. But what was there or does a Facebook fan page offer in terms of recipe organization to attract that many fans?
Except for one, I haven’t seen many social media consultants look at this in a manner useful to small business owners and bloggers who have been engaging in social media ethically. Not to mention seeing an entity of the fourth largest magazine reach out to this fan page makes me wonder if the message to bloggers is use any means to create a fan base because bottom line it is numbers, not engagement via content, that matters.
Hi Andy, Thanks for your comment. I sure would love to see a link to that article you mentioned giving a useful take on this. care to come back and share it?
You bring up an interesting point about how big brand names may not be social-media savvy enough to check into the origins when something like this happens. But, I’m SURE they would appreciate a thoughtful email from a smaller blogger who could educate them about the full story, which sounds like a great way to get noticed to me.
I have sent an email to the publisher and editor of that magazine, signed Andi with an i 🙂 But not because I’m a smaller blogger looking to be noticed, but because I am a librarian who does her research.
If you’re not following Mari Smith on Twitter or Facebook, I recommend her to those interested in Facebook and social media
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150301885820009&set=a.208729010008.138466.42328360008&type=1
Sorry about the typo Andi! I fixed it now 🙂 Yes, Mari smith is terrific. I highly recommend following her too.
I don’t agree with your statement that the origins don’t matter. It is highly likely that the person initially behind the Crock Pot Girls Facebook page used a bot crawler that made it look like your friends were already fans of the page when they were not and that did some other shady things along those lines. In addition to being ethically corrupt, that action also very likely seriously compromised the Facebook Terms of Use.
If you stole a million dollars then used it to make 10 million more, isn’t stealing the first million still wrong?
You are absolutely correct Matt – stealing is always wrong. (Except if it’s your kid’s ice cream cone and you take a few licks when they aren’t looking, so they won’t be so crazy on sugar.)
And I agree with you about Facebook too. I would expect them to clamp down if they find any evidence of a bot.