Facebook: Do you prefer in or out?

A few days ago Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, confessed that his efforts to market within Facebook haven´t gone especially well.

I can move a lot of people around other parts of the web quite well. But inside Facebook? Where there are TONS of people? Nothing. I never seem to get  motion.

Chris asked his community what pages they followed, to get an idea of what was appealing for them and get hints on how to improve his own performance on this network. The list included restaurants, coffee shops, coaching pages, which obviously the followers are interested in, but there are some other interesting findings and one of them particularly called my attention and made me think about my “Facebook behaviour”:

We like things that keep us in-system (within Facebook as opposed to sending  us outside of Facebook). We like feeling that by being here, we’re getting  something special. We like sharing if it’s something we like.

I had not thought about this before but it does seem to make sense. More and more we live in our own digital ecosystems, where we have the contents we like and the people we like to share them with, without even having to leave the particular network. If there’s something that a network doesn’t have and others do, it will end up copying it not to lose any potential users. Big networks like Facebook are working hard on offering their users/inhabitants things they can enjoy elsewhere, so that no one leaves.

It also seems logical that younger users are the ones who might be less eager to leave the network of their choice, where they have most of their friends and social relations, if they can find everything within. Because social is even more crucial when we’re kids, teenagers or young adults. So are we moving towards a scenario where users will have everything they enjoy on one single space, without even getting out to send emails or read blogs? Will companies focus their efforts on offering contents, sales, promotions, even email marketing signups embedded on Facebook pages?

Chris Brogan announced that he would keep testing this and share the results on the Third Tribe Marketing forum, so I’m looking forward to that and to further discussions on these issues.

What do you think? Do you prefer to stay in the system or do you prefer out? Here are some questions for you to think about, and if you answer the form that will be very helpful, so we can all figure it out together. Thanks!

2 comentarios / 15 Feb 2011 por Leila Nachawati
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