I was recently doing some research for a client presentation on interactive marketing and decided to check out their My Space and Face Book pages. I Googled "company XYZ at My Space" and was delighted to get a link to what appeared to be the client's official My Space page. Once inside My Space, I used their internal search tool to confirm that I was on the correct page. Yep, looks like both My Space and Google were directing me to the same page, so it must be the correct one. Only it wasn't. Problem was, I didn't find out until I was well into my client presentation. So that raised a simple question, how does a fan/user/prospect find a firm's "official" social networking properties?
In my case, performing an in-site or Google search yielded a false sense of security. Now I know better. But how many prospects out there had the same experience as me, i.e. logging into what appeared to be an "official" page, being underwhelmed with the experience, and moving on. All without ever realizing that we never in fact reached our desired destination. The easiest, most obvious way for a firm to prevent this experience is to put a link on their website directly to their social media pages. This would remove all confusion. Problem is, many firms do not do this.
And to compound the issue, I learned that many "fan" pages have more interesting, updated and relevant content than a firm's official page may have. Again, adding to the confusion as to which is the actual "official" page. I would posit that firms need to start addressing this issue seriously before an inordinate number of prospects begin to think that 12 year old Billy's My Space page is the public voice of their brand.
So, other than having links directly on their corporate websites to Face Book and My Space pages, what can a firm do to ensure users find their "official" social media pages? Here are a few ideas:
1 - Somewhere on the page, state plainly that is is the "Official My Space Page of Company XYZ." That will remove all doubt.
2 - Monitor the social network to identify fan pages, and post content or communications that will alert other users to the fact that the given page is a fan site and not the firm's official page.
3 - Ensure that your firm makes frequent updates to your official pages. One way a prospect might realize they are on the wrong page is if the last post is 6 months old, or discusses "upcoming" events that happened last year.
4 - Where the law allows, link from the social networking page back to your official site. This should confirm users found the correct page.
5 - Perform your SEO due-diligence to ensure your social media pages come up in the first page of search results.
6 - Put a little skin in the game and do some PPC (pay per click) to ensure your pages come up after the appropriate user search.
Companies should also include links to these official pages in their email and other correspondences. In this way, businesses can ensure that the efforts they make in the social networking space will bear fruit, and that the fruit will be what they planted, not a knock-off of by an eager fan.
In my case, performing an in-site or Google search yielded a false sense of security. Now I know better. But how many prospects out there had the same experience as me, i.e. logging into what appeared to be an "official" page, being underwhelmed with the experience, and moving on. All without ever realizing that we never in fact reached our desired destination. The easiest, most obvious way for a firm to prevent this experience is to put a link on their website directly to their social media pages. This would remove all confusion. Problem is, many firms do not do this.
And to compound the issue, I learned that many "fan" pages have more interesting, updated and relevant content than a firm's official page may have. Again, adding to the confusion as to which is the actual "official" page. I would posit that firms need to start addressing this issue seriously before an inordinate number of prospects begin to think that 12 year old Billy's My Space page is the public voice of their brand.
So, other than having links directly on their corporate websites to Face Book and My Space pages, what can a firm do to ensure users find their "official" social media pages? Here are a few ideas:
1 - Somewhere on the page, state plainly that is is the "Official My Space Page of Company XYZ." That will remove all doubt.
2 - Monitor the social network to identify fan pages, and post content or communications that will alert other users to the fact that the given page is a fan site and not the firm's official page.
3 - Ensure that your firm makes frequent updates to your official pages. One way a prospect might realize they are on the wrong page is if the last post is 6 months old, or discusses "upcoming" events that happened last year.
4 - Where the law allows, link from the social networking page back to your official site. This should confirm users found the correct page.
5 - Perform your SEO due-diligence to ensure your social media pages come up in the first page of search results.
6 - Put a little skin in the game and do some PPC (pay per click) to ensure your pages come up after the appropriate user search.
Companies should also include links to these official pages in their email and other correspondences. In this way, businesses can ensure that the efforts they make in the social networking space will bear fruit, and that the fruit will be what they planted, not a knock-off of by an eager fan.
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