‘Likes’ Through Incentives
Pushkar Sane | October 19, 2011
Most of us desire fame and fan following. We want people to ‘Like’ us. We obviously make efforts (knowingly or unknowingly) to please people or at least not displease them. Celebrities go a step further. They hire publicists and image managers to help them maintain and increase their fan following. They do undertake initiatives that can please people. Brands are no exceptions. Brands want consumers to like them. Brands want consumers to follow them. Brands want to get recommended. Brands want to be famous. For decades marketers have been spending time, effort, and money so that they can persuade consumers to ‘like’, ‘follow’, and ‘recommend’ brands.
Given the hype around social in general and Facebook in particular, it is natural for marketers to put extra emphasis on proving that their brands are ‘liked’, followed, and recommended by consumers. CMOs now preside over meetings to set fan acquisition goals and track progress on a weekly basis. Since we operate in a fast moving world, it is assumed that consumers also need to move fast to ‘like’, follow, and recommend brands. As a result, entire marketing machinery is busy crafting strategies to rapidly increase the fan numbers. In recent months I have seen several brands offering incentives to rapidly increase ‘likes’ or ‘followers’ on social platforms. I personally think that such strategies can probably get short-term results that look good rather than getting good results that can help the brand in the long run.
One recent initiative caught my attention. I was a bit disappointed as I have great respect for both the brand and the marketers behind them. I have used this example to demonstrate a wider industry issue.
Surf Excel India is incentivising people to ‘like’ the Surf Excel brand page on Facebook. For every person who clicks the ‘like’ button, Surf Excel India promises to donate goods worth Rs. 11 (US$0.23) to NGOs. It is a charitable cause and there will be people who will hit the ‘like’ button so that the underprivileged can be helped. This initiative is called ‘Make a Difference with Surf Excel’.
I fail to understand whether this is a marketing initiative or part of some corporate social responsibility program or a marriage of both. I wonder what is the profile of fans acquired through an initiative like this. Do they really like Surf Excel and buy the brand? Do they really care about Surf Excel to recommend it to friends? Will they continue to follow Surf Excel after that one click to donate Rs. 11 to charity? And finally what will happen to them after this fan acquisition initiative is over? Above all, why does Surf Excel need people to ‘like’ its page for donating money to charity? Why can’t it do it anyways?
I also ‘liked’ the page so that Surf Excel can donate Rs. 11 to one of the NGOs. It immediately placed a Make a Difference App in front of me with a request to access my wall and other details. I declined it. I then wanted to go back to the Make a Difference Page but it wouldn’t let me open the page unless I allow access to the app. Why does Surf Excel need access to my basic info, get permission to send me emails, right to post on my behalf, and even my birthday? Needless to say it irritated me and I was very disappointed.
I will probably never go back to the page or have any relationship with the brand but I will be counted as one of the fans of Surf Excel India page on Facebook. And like me there will be thousands of people. The brand manager will certainly get a pat on the back for taking this initiative viral through an app. The agency will submit the case for creative, media, and even effectiveness awards. And unfortunately, life will move on.
AFR (Acquire Fans Randomly) virus is lethal and difficult to remove once you contract it. I’m not against putting focus on increasing fans for brand but I’m very much against acquiring them through random incentives and methods. If your brand genuinely adds value to people then you will actually have no problem in consistently growing your fan base and getting ‘likes’, followers, and recommendations.
Tags: Facebook, Surf Excel
Superb thoughts… Precisely the thoughts that cross my mind when I see such race for ‘likes’. I came across a similar promo from Blackberry… They were giving away caps and such merchandise material to every ‘like’ .. They don’t have to. In my opinion this whole ‘like’ thing quite strange. I have seen people posting “Feeling Sad” and then there are ‘likes’ against that post.. What a paradox. I however love the way some telecom brands involve fans on the social media… Idea, Vodafone and even Vmobile a doing a great job.
Excellent articulation of the subject Pushkar..
Thanks Sandeep for your comments. Agree with the paradox observation.
Excellent blogpost! Truly agree with your thoughts. However, I didn’t face this app issue. When I clicked on like page, it got accepted and took me to the wall directly. But, I agree with your thoughts on how brands are acquiring irrelevant fans just to increase their fan base.
Thank you Anandan for your comments. Try going to ‘Make a Difference’ Tab on the left hand side menu and you will find you can’t access that content unless you allow the APP to access all your data.
Certainly a very thought provoking point which all digital marketing heads should to look in to. From the marketer point of view, this concept/idea is a brilliant one but definitely an annoyance for the user. I agree to the last point “If your brand genuinely adds value to people then you will actually have no problem in consistently growing your fan base and getting ‘likes’, followers, and recommendations”.
Thank you Rashmi for your comments.
There is this paronia for having to get ahead of the pack in the consumer or any other competitive market and quantitative analysis requires availability of all kinds of numbers which can lend themselves to be analysed.
The need for enagaging the customers/fans and Growing the numbers in the fan page and also trying to gain access to their data are all part of this general action frenzy which symptomises the affliction of by the ‘AFR’ Virus that your Marketing Microscope has discovered.
Brands require better hand-holding and probably firms such as yours (Convergination Ventures) and persons like you with better conusumer sensibilties will need to play more prominent roles in evangelising about Nutritive approach for Healthy Brand Management.
Thanks Narayanmoorthy for your comments. Agree with the observation that there is a race to get ahead.
Unfortunately Social Media becomes a little unsocial when we start buying followers. My strong belief is that as a brand we should be following one or more strategies of connecting with our TG on the media but should allow customers to like it / follow it organically. There has to be a social connect and I am sure if the connect is compelling enough people will always “like” it
Thanks Kaushik for your comments.
Alice
thank you very much for making some very relevant points – specifically differentiating ‘Like’ and Transparency. I’m not against the idea of donating or brand associating with social causes. My argument is only against using such methods to boost the fan numbers.
Thanks once again.
Pushkar
This would probably be a campaign better suited to the new developments announced at f8, where you can specifically build an app that allows a fan to say “Alice is donating to Surf Excel Indian NGOs” rather than “Alice Likes Surf India Excel.” That differentiates a “like” with an implied opinion, from an action, like a donation which doesn’t actually imply you specifically Like that brand.
I believe an App can be defined to have more or less access to your data. So this campaign should have had a much lighter touch when you clicked “Allow” so you didn’t feel that it was going to do something nasty. So while the idea of donating is good, the execution was flawed.
Transparency to the user has to be the way forward. Brands must think about this carefully, or risk alienating their ‘fans’. Especially with the ‘passive sharing’ model of Facebook, and the remarkable lessening of privacy.