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Why are Companies sending their users to facebook!

I’m sure you’ve seen this a million times already – big company advertisement, and at the end of the commercial, they tell you to visit their FACEBOOK fan page?! This is just absolutely stunning to me. Companies like McDonalds, GM and Starbucks who have already built up tremendous loyal consumers are running major advertising campaigns with the urls being sent to their facebook fan page.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that the big companies “get it” and are active in the social networking space. But why dilute your branding efforts to spend money to only send a potential customer to your fan page?

Shouldn’t your home page instead direct readers to the fan page?

I understand that resources might be an issue and to quickly get up and running in the social space might trigger a company to quickly establish their presence on facebook. But any major brand *should* have the web team in place that could easily add a simple “join us on facebook” icon added to their home page.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad use of your marketing spend?

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Post Tags: best, branding, Facebook, SEO, URLs

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Comments ( 6 )

I am in complete agreement with you. What happens if people truly do leave Facebook at a rapid clip and it no longer has the marketing power it does now? I think its a misguided effort to be “on top” of their social marketing.

Stacy added these pithy words on Jun 24 10 at 7:55 pm

I agree with you, too. Facebook is supposed to channel people to your site, not replace it.

I consider part of social media foolishness. It’s the fire in the movie theater thing. Everything thinks that because Facebook is where most people spend their time, that naturally, they’ll choose to spend their time looking at your page. Yeah right. It’s a complete misread of social media.

I understand the idea behind having a Facebook page. It’s a wonderful way to show that you are alive and well and you should certainly connect with your fans, but, if the heart of your business requires that people actually come to your site, or if you just want them to, you need to direct them there, first, and then further strengthen your relationship with Facebook users by allowing them the opportunity to connect with you there, as well.

Tia added these pithy words on Jun 26 10 at 7:55 am

Tia – Thanks for the comments! While it makes sense to have a presence at those sites, to make that the central destination point is a bit risky in my opinion.

admin added these pithy words on Jun 26 10 at 1:25 pm

I think they try to make loyal customers as much as they can. Everyone is using facebook, so its a good advertising

Kyriakos added these pithy words on Sep 29 10 at 11:22 am

@Kyriakos – I don’t disagree about the advertising reach that facebook has, but as a brand, why would I want people to remember my site via facebbok?

What happens when/if facebook gets replaced by another site? All that time and energy spent building up that brand equity on the facebook page will goto waste compared to if that company spent that energy on their own site.

admin added these pithy words on Sep 29 10 at 1:42 pm

I am 50% and 50% with you. All depends on the field and the communications they want to have with the buyer. If in Facebook i have direct notes, discounts and interection why I going to invest in something similar? Also, the buyer will go to facebook anyways. So better get them there too. Then, if I want to have traffic on my website facebook become a tool for it. Indeed, the notes are the best for it! Just a comment!