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While catching up on my reading this morning, I came across this article from the new york times on challenges faced by some advertisers on social media platforms. The story focuses on Proctor & Gamble’s use of facebook ads. Apparently, they’ve been having some difficulties:

Ted McConnell, manager of interactive marketing and innovation at P.& G., said, “I really don’t want to buy any more banner ads in Facebook.” His remarks were offered as his personal reflections, not the official position of his employer, and were available on the Web in a podcast of the talk

I read about half of this article before I went on a mission: searching to see if I’ve somehow missed a trend shift (rip van winkle style sleeping for a 100 years?) and facebook became a dead medium. Thankfully after scanning through over 2000 articles on my google reader archives I find no such horrid news… So I return to my original thought – it’s P&G’s marketing approach that is ineffective, not Facebook itself.

Let me just tell you I am biased – I run a business based on consulting marketing firms on how to integrate social media platforms like Facebook into their traditional marketing programs. I do this not because I’m some social media devotee, I do it because I’m 1/2 creative and 1/2 geek – firmly believing technology should be used to make life EASIER, not as the life-sucking fad-track that it is when you don’t use the tool well. It’s simple – hand my grandmother the quilter a hammer and she’s not going to get much done – hand her a needle and thread and you’ll have a new blanket in short order. (I know – I’ve seen her produce 3 of them in the last 3 months)

So back to the point – P&G clearly hasn’t harnessed the power of the social media network.

Brand pages won’t make anyone uncomfortable about privacy issues. But one has to have a compelling reason to seek out these pages. The P.& G. spokeswoman pointed me to its “2X Ultra Tide” page. Here one finds an 11-month-old campaign, “American’s Favorite Stains,” where members can post their “favorite places to enjoy stain-making moments!” When I checked last week, it displayed a grand total of just 18 submissions, including two from P.& G., two from someone at The Onion and one-word posts like “Tidealicious!”

Stagnant pages don’t produce results

Back in April of 2008 Facebook released the Facebook Pages Insider’s Guide, outlining the key strategies of successful marketing on the site. The top 3 strategies were:

1) Regularly adding engaging and useful content
2) Letting fans participate in the conversation
3) Expanding their distribution with Facebook Ads

Now the NYT article author says the P&G’s Tide campaign content had not been updated in 11 months.. but if you look at the page it’s been only 6 months. Either way, does that sound like “Regularly adding engaging and useful content” to you?

P&G aren’t the only offenders here, just scroll through some of your favorite brand facebook pages and I’m sure you will find more and more examplse – if they’re even online yet. Using Social Media as an effective marketing tool requires a change in way we evaluate a campaign. Unlike a television or direct mail campaign, these “identities” on facebook stick around… forever. This is both a negative and a positive – on the positive side you have sticking power.. but on the negative side you have sticking power even if the campaign isn’t effective.

So what if you created a page for your brand and created your very own brand “identity” online? Not just a TIDE page, but the Tide page that’s run by Susan – the Tide Mom – who goes through everything the average tide mom goes through – shares her tips tricks and “war stories”, uploads videos of related topics, takes pictures of kids messy-ness (maybe creates a submit the nasties stain photo contest?)… Wouldn’t that sort of identity be one that mom’s would connect to, be engaged with, and then participate in?? Better yet, you could create individual identities for your unique buyer profiles

In his remarks to the club, Mr. McConnell said, “All brands want consumers to be their ‘friends.’ Oh, boy, do they!” But speaking for himself, he said he had reservations about the very premise. “I don’t want to be best friends with a brand,” he said. “It’s just stuff.”

So stop making it just about the stuff… make it about the people and you’ll see results. After all, Social Media is all about being SOCIAL – and that requires human participation and interaction. It’s not merely a formula, it’s a community.