One of the interesting things about social networks and other web 2.0-y stuff has always been the opportunity for marketers to see how people actually talk about brands. There's no research effect, no worrying that people are trying to please the interviewer, no long questionnaires or sterile focus group facilities. Now you can see how your brand or product or campaign is being discussed/used/spoofed/etc in real time on blogs, on YouTube, on Flickr, and so on. (Or what's often worse, if it's not being discussed.)
Facebook looks set to trump all of that. With Facebook's meteoric rise (they're now at 25+ million users) over the last few months, I've been checking all the brands and categories we work on, and so far every single one has at least one group (and often dozens) set up around it - whether out of love or hate or ironic appreciation or bewilderment. As barriers to participation go, the bar is a lot lower to join a Facebook group (you need to click one button) than to film and post a YouTube video, or even to write a blog post, so there seems to be a lot more brand-centric discussion happening there than elsewhere. Although it's not always deeply insightful ("Tropicana kicks Minute Maid's orange juice ass!" is fairly typical), it's still amazing to watch.
Facebook has also just launched Facebook Polls, which lets you pose a question to Facebook users - either all of them, or targeted by age/geography/gender/group. It's really easy to use, super fast, and costs only $5 for set up and a variable cost (as low as $0.10) per response. I wouldn't exactly call it projectable or statistically valid, and I won't be basing any huge decisions on it, but as quick and dirty research options go (and especially for reaching young adults), it looks compelling.
And with the recent opening of Facebook's doors to external apps, people are starting to wonder if Facebook is on its way to becoming the next web giant - not just a site or a network, but a platform that all social networking can be built from.
In the meantime, I'm just glad this now has its own Facebook group:
Yep. Indeedy. But before we get too carried away, here's some devil's advocacy worth reading from the keyboard of from Mr. Om Malik
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/06/13/ten-things-i-hate-about-you-facebook/
Posted by: Lee | June 14, 2007 at 04:32 PM