Sponsorship and Facebook for Brands
April 26, 2009 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Social Media
Facebook has been more of a personal networking site and a site in which people can connect with their brands or share a community around a brand. However the problem has always been how do brands use networking to drive revenue growth. For me networking is not about revenue it is about brand awareness, it is about creating an experience which engages the customer….but State Farm are trying something a little different.
Ad age reports that they are extending a “a campaign…is already running with the celeb magazine” and with US Weekly “become a paid sponsor of US Weekly’s redesigned Facebook profile page, clearing the way for other media companies to sell similar sponsorships. Facebook does not get a cut of the ad deal”
Interesting, so in paying sponsorship State Farm are ‘buying’ the community. Key for this sponsorship to work for all parties is that each side of the triangle wins
Community gets valued content and their friendship is not abused, their friendship is valued.
US Weekly find a revenue route without disengaging their consumers
State Farm find engaged consumers who through brand awareness and brand engagement strategy move from potential customers to actual customers.
This triangle is a difficult one to achieve….the problem is that each side sees the deal from their own viewpoint instead of an interlinked ‘friendship’, an interlinked value proposition.
[istockphoto]
