We are in the midst of developing a Facebook application for a client to exploit social media as a marketing vehicle here in Hong Kong. This is the client’s first foray into new media and we are naturally very excited about the project and also very eager to see how well it will turn out given that is focussed on a local business (admittedly with an international feel to it).
Then today, when I logged onto my Facebook page, I saw something that made me cringe, but at the same time, made me felt very good (and no, I do not have self mutilation tendencies). I saw a friend who posted a link to a local baby clothing retailer, who in turn gave away a 20% discount coupon – great stuff, and the clothes do look nice! Problem is, the company got it a bit wrong on how the coupon will be delivered to the participants – it claims you just need to post the link and the company will be able to send the coupon to your Facebook mail account. I don’t think this is actually feasible, and many mums probably found out as well, so I guess one of the smart ones decide to join the page as a fan and then also proceed to leave a message on the fan page with her email (ok, may be she was told to do this, I do not know). Before you know it, many other mums followed suit and now the fan page is full of people’s email addresses – (oucch, privacy 0 hackers, cringe! cringe! )
Now, I don’t want to reveal the name of the company cos it’s a bit unethical, and I am not here to diss the company either. What interests me a great deal is to see that the rise of the social networks has really turned the tables upside down on marketing (and I am no marketing guru). This company has over 1000 fans on the Facebook company page, and it managed to garner a great response to her Facebook 20% discount campaign – that is she has managed to generate over 50 leads in about 2 hours! I think for a small retailer, this is pretty astounding. I also think the conversion rate is going to be very high, as the mums look mega keen to get the coupon.
As a side note, an interesting analysis of the 50 or so email addresses that are on the fan page reveals 32 belongs to a Yahoo Mail address of some sort! Just goes to show that Yahoo is / can still be a major player locally in targeting the 30 somethings (assuming most mum with a young child will be in this group).
Well, enough of my rant, I am going to take away 3 things from my little exercise
1. Selling online + marketing though social media is going to be awesome! Even for local businesses!!
2. Better solutions are needed to help businesses large and small to use these media properly, so I do not get to harvest the emails of 50 mothers.
3. Trying to come up with something funny to do with 50 mums but that will probably put me in a bad light so better leave it at that … and I have total respect for mums … honest.
Until next time …
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