Facebook Fans Aren't Real Fans
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
(Update: Be sure to read the comments. That's where the real meat is. Thanks everyone for contributing to such a great discussion.)
I was doing a little research on online fan communities for TV shows. After browsing fan blogs, fan message boards, fan LiveJournal groups, fan vidding sites, and fan wikis, I realized that Facebook fan pages must seem like an offensive joke to the real fans.
Facebook has lowered the barrier to entry to being a fan to nothing more than a simple mouse click. The upside is that it makes it easy for the subject of the fandom to collect people who care. The downside is that being a fan of something on Facebook means about as little as it possibly could.
Back in November, I was thinking about the different levels of fan participation and how they create different levels of relationships.
In this universe, Facebook has essentially created a distant satellite, floating out there in the ether beyond audience.
I guess for non-entertainment or non-narrative based subjects, they're just happy to have any kind of fan. But, this gap in seriousness and effort among different online fans highlights one of the reasons why engaging fan communities can be tricky.
That said, there are plenty of reasons why it's worthwhile.
Comments welcome.
I was doing a little research on online fan communities for TV shows. After browsing fan blogs, fan message boards, fan LiveJournal groups, fan vidding sites, and fan wikis, I realized that Facebook fan pages must seem like an offensive joke to the real fans.
Facebook has lowered the barrier to entry to being a fan to nothing more than a simple mouse click. The upside is that it makes it easy for the subject of the fandom to collect people who care. The downside is that being a fan of something on Facebook means about as little as it possibly could.
Back in November, I was thinking about the different levels of fan participation and how they create different levels of relationships.
In this universe, Facebook has essentially created a distant satellite, floating out there in the ether beyond audience.
I guess for non-entertainment or non-narrative based subjects, they're just happy to have any kind of fan. But, this gap in seriousness and effort among different online fans highlights one of the reasons why engaging fan communities can be tricky.
That said, there are plenty of reasons why it's worthwhile.
Comments welcome.
29 Comments:
The major issue with Fan pages on Facebook is that, in large, their purpose is to showcase the appreciation for the brand/show/person to other facebook friends as opposed to connect with the brand.
Facebook is also a bit disruptive (not the good kind) to daily workflow. I can be in the office and quickly type a tweet to someone (@behance for their action method or @dropio for their present.io presentation beta). If they reply I get a notification that I can tend to later. I do not need to have a Facebook page open for that.
FB fans are a way to get more of yr *latent* fans in one space. In the classic 90-9-1 participation model, Facebook offers a way to herd up the 90% a bit more effectively.
I think you're right to point out that this might cause tension with the 9% and the 1% though (cf the model of sports fandoms, where there's a massive gulf between the hardcore following and the armchair/passive/'glory-hunting' wider fanbase)
First of all, I love your site. Wow. It's beautiful. Clean, simple, and holy crap, a Blogger site? ... wow.
Second, I agree with you. Especially with the advent of the silly "fan" pages. "2 friends are fans of sleeping in. Become a fan!"
Um, no. I'm not a "fan" of sleeping in. I like sleeping in. I do it when I can. Just like I watch my favourite shows when I can. But I am not a fan--which is short for fanatic, right? The only thing I'm a fan of is website usability. I will go to great lengths to ensure that websites I'm responsible for meet usability standards. I blog about it. I work in the field. I read scholastic articles about the subject for fun.
But enough about me.
I think it's not just Facebook's fault, the meaning of the word "fan" has been watered down significantly. Facebook is adding a cup or two.
The new fan page allows brands to be integrated with Facebook's social functions the same as a friend would. For example, every time I update my brand's feed, share a link, create an event or upload a video, these actions show up in the feeds of more than 1,300 fans.
The problem is that most brands don't integrate the fan page with their website or other platforms. If I go to your website and I like it and there a big button on the homepage that says "Join our fanpage to receive XYZ" I will most likely join it. Personally, if a brand I use (or artist I like) uses their fan page to announce events, news, post videos and provide a valuable extension of their offerings through Facebook, I am very likely to become a fan and visit their page regularly. This wasn't the case for me 6 months ago, when the fan page was like the dark attic of a house that you hardly ever visited. The fan page is part of the living room now.
Facebook is my main social platform. It goes beyond my blog or Twitter when it comes to communicating my thoughts with my network and updating them. So I have to say that Fan Pages are turning around. It all depends on how you use them and how much of your audience is on Facebook. My brand is targeted towards college students so naturally Facebook is my #1 secondary platform.
Hey Mike -
Interesting post! It's true that you can "become a fan" with a single click on Facebook, but that doesn't mean that you aren't participating in the other ways you outline in your graphic on other platforms. I'd also argue that, even though the barriers to entry are low, by publicly identifying yourself as a fan to your network and anyone who looks at your page, you are demonstrating some degree of investment in whatever it is you're a fan of, and potentially stimulating conversation about it within their network.
I think this all sort of begs the question, how would you define a "real fan"? :)
-Eleanor
I have my own personal qualms with Facebook fan pages. This whole notion of becoming a fan with the click of a button, is nothing more than a glorified merit-badging system. I get the sense that the deluge of brands jumping on the FB-fan-page bandwagon, is partly induced by companies wanting to be able to show the numbers as some correlative to success. Where's the value? Again, it's just another haptic feed-back loop.
Brand X: "Do you like us?"
User Y: "Yes, we like you."
Brand X: "Oh...ok good, just checking"
Another quick point I'd like to make is that fans create/appropriate/hijack their own spaces for the production and dissemination of culture and meaning. There's a ritualistic process of initiation into a group/tribe, there are normative practices, and often rules and protocols for those spaces. The lack of exclusivity for FB fan pages, dilutes the significance of becoming a fan of something.
Facebook fans are still fans - they're just not hardcore.
This benefits Prom King Brands in that they have the coolness factor going for them- many people will become fans of say, Nike or Pabst Blue Ribbon beer because there's a perceived coolness to liking those brands.
But it benefits less glamorous brands too, given the ease and lack of commitment of becoming a fan of say Minute Maid orange juice. You might not seek it out, but if it really is your favorite brand of OJ, and you see that someone else has friended it, you'll probably do so as well. And if they send you a coupon (for argument's sake) you'd probably be happy about that too.
Remember that most brands don't really have hard core fans. They have people who like them okay or like them better than others in the field, but that's about as far is it goes. FB makes it easier for those types of brands to play in social media and possibly develop more of a personality
Hmm... I'm not sure I'd say (as, by anyone's definition, a 'hardcore fan') that Facebook fan pages are offensive. What I would say is that they have nothing to do with me. So if a company spends a lot of time focusing on its Facebook fans, yeah, that would probably be construed as offensive. Their existence isn't... we all know that there are people who are less fannish than we are. But if companies treat them as the end-all and be-all of fannishness? That is.
This is actually a trap that companies frequently fall into: they look at where the greatest numbers are, which is not where the greatest investment is. So if you actually have a real person talk to the Facebook fans - well, that's great and all, but it won't have nearly the impact that sending someone to talk to the committed fans will, I think.
I think Flourish's comment was spot on. So I'll just repost that bit, "This is actually a trap that companies frequently fall into: they look at where the greatest numbers are, which is not where the greatest investment is."
Again, digital is not mass media, not even if you can run $50k just to get enough people in one place to click a button (and become your fan). People love clicking buttons, that doesn't mean people love you.
Beyond identity construction, it's a shallow proposition. Brands need to be doing more, on their own, to court their most invested fans.
I've been giving fans a bit of thought lately, and I'm beginning to think the best approach is to let your fans be your lead users. Coke's FB fan page was started by two fans. Coke stepped in and presumably said, 'hey, let us help you make this even more awesome' - which would be the right course. Use a bit of positive deviance to highlight fan lead behaviors you appreciate. A FB fan page may be a great place for you to be, or it may not, and with those kinds of decisions you can always rely on your hardcore fans to lead you.
@Bud & Flourish: The fatal flaw in your argument-- and it's a big one-- is that you posit that most brands have hardcore fans.
They don't.
Brands with hardcore fans e.g. Prom King Brands, are a minute subset. Eliminate sports teams and entertainment properties, and you can probably list the brands with hardcore fans in a couple of minutes.
That's the challenge in social media: using it for low-interest brands.
@Alan: You're right and I should have clarified that - of course it won't do any good to focus on hardcore fans of a brand if the brand doesn't have any hardcore fans. But I'd suggest that there are more brands out there with hardcore fans than one might expect, if you know where to look. To be fair, I am only really familiar with this topic as it regards media properties and some online tools. But it's so important to remember that fans don't necessarily get in contact with you! They gather in their own online communities, connect on their own, don't necessarily live on famous boards like Television Without Pity or on brand-created sites. Which is the major fallacy I've seen people fall into. Still doesn't address the question of how to deal with brands that simply don't have any hardcore fans, but...
@Alan - I think you raise a really important point about the type of brand and the fan community that springs up around it. Probably every brand has at least a handful of people who are crazy about it, but those numbers may be too small to market to effectively. At that point it may make sense to reach out those folks for input on the product, but to try to make your reach on some platforms as broad as possible, especially if the ultimate goal it to sell a specific product on a regular basis by keeping it in peoples' minds at the right moment, which is not necessarily the goal for an entertainment property or a sports team.
@Bud - I think fans and heavy users of products are lead users already - Erik von Hippel talks about this in his work (http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/)
Overall, I'm curious about why the Facebook fan pages are offensive? What type of behavior defines someone as a "real" fan, and why is someone defining themselves as a fan on Facebook an issue? Yeah, it's a single click, but it doesn't mean they don't express their affinity in other ways. And, as a fan, isn't there some pleasure in seeing that others like what you do?
Eleanor
thanks for all the great comments, everyone!
@bud, i thought the same thing when i read @flourish's comment.
"This is actually a trap that companies frequently fall into: they look at where the greatest numbers are, which is not where the greatest investment is."
I'm gonna keep quoting that for a while.
@alan, i had the same thought after i read @bud's and @flourish's comments. ...sure, but most brands _don't_ have fans.
but, this takes us back to something that Henry Jenkins likes to say, which is that brands can't _create_ fan communities, they can only _court_ pre-existing communities.
so, the challenge for the non-entertainment and non-prom king brands is to identify existing relevant fan communities and create experiences for them.
Alan: if your brand can't earn fans, then you should stop worrying about your facebook fan page and start making something remarkable.
And I agree with Flourish, you'd be surprised at the hardcore fandom for even the most obscure brands. But it's small, smaller in numbers than we're used to dealing with. But 200 people can take over the internet if we give them something interesting to do.
Aside from accruing brand fans, there's the task of courting tangential or related fan communities - and that has nothing to do with your branded page. These pages are still tiny islands brands can sit atop instead of actually embedding themselves within the network.
@Eleanor
I think the UC guys have a problem with people being desensitized to the word "fan".
The current system where facebook lets you become a "fan" is nothing more than "I like this". Sure, you can have bi-directional communication on the page, but that doesn't REALLY happen.
Let me simplify:
I like sleeping, morning sex, and cold milk w/ cereal too.... but I don't know if I am an evangelist (well maybe the sex) of those. I don't really tell people that they should only have cold milk w/ cereal for breakfast. I do, however, tell people that they should use Dropbox on a daily basis and will argue till I am blue in the face that the Court Victory Reebok Pump is the coolest shoe ever made (EVER).
That is where the line is drawn. Acknowledging your appreciation for the brand vs. evangelizing the greatness of it to others.
I hope that helps.
g
@gary
OK, so you're saying if I just like something, I'm not really a fan, but if I evangelize it, I am?
If that's right, my question is, by virtue of clicking on the button to say that you are a fan, are you not evangelizing the brand to others by publicly identifying yourself with it? And who is to say if I become a fan, that I'm *not* invested in something?
So, I think it's bringing us back to the question of what makes you a real/worthy fan of something? What are the real/worthy means of expressing that?
Eleanor
@Flourish, @Alan, @BCaddell
Love your comment thread, and thought I'd dive right in as well. I think Alan's comment is core to this argument, most brands do not have hardcore fans- mainly because they do not have a product that is fan-worthy. Low-engagement products like soap and duct-tape could never get people excited enough to be "fans," right?
Well, yes. And no.
To bring up a conversation that's long been a part of our collective understanding-- brands will succeed in the social space when they align themselves with consumer passions beyond the core functional benefits of their product. Just because a product is not high-engagement enough to merit a real dialogue, doesn't mean your product is out of luck.
Duct tape is not worthy of fandom. But a culture built around "insane" uses of duct tape (duct tape wallets, duct tape clothing, "duct tape can fix anything" wikis) is. Soap alone is not worth of fandom, but a soap that aligns itself with real beauty and individuality sure is. The list could go on.
At any rate, I agree with Mike's original point that facebook fandom is essentially "Fandom Light," and that when brands focus their energies chiefly on these faux-fan groups it can become offensive to real fans, and more importantly to the brand, not effective.
My question is, what are some best practices for identifying the "real fans?" Often, they can look a lot like faux-fans at first blush.
Alex,
Great question. You're right to point out that 'fan'ing something on Facebook still plays a role in evangelizing something. It certainly plays a part of identity creation within Facebook to click that button. But for most, that's where your involvement ends.
Juxtapose that with what Flourish studies: fan culture that takes a product, and builds whole communities around sharing original works. I cringe at 'appropriation', but that's what it is. Hardcore fans don't just wear the badge, they make their own. Ultimately, it's a measure of active engagement, rather than passive consumption.
Mike, thanks for the great post and the lively debate. I hope everyone will now join my new Facebook fan page.
first off - one of the best discussions I've ever read. thank you all for such good thinking.
secondly - i think the focus here seems to be on consumers marking themselves as "fans" and what that word indicates. this is the facebook vernacular, and i think it might be flawed to think if consumers are declaring themselves as anything more than casual enjoyers of the brand (Petco) or activity (sleeping in) or concept (sunlight) that they've marked down.
i'd love to get everyone's take on the way the "fandom" is being used by brands and corporations themselves. going back to your boss' boss and saying "look, we were able to accumulate x number of fans on facebook" seems as much a misrepresentation of facts and a manipulation of data as if you'd said (based on let's say a report stating 55% of your brand users would recommend your product to a friend): "the majority of our brand users are true ambassadors." Do you follow? The language is correct, but misleading.
Instead, I think the onus is on the company/brand to not use facebook as a measuring stick, unless there is actual activity associated with consumer base. again, it seems to come down to our trying to make digital behaviors the equivalent of analog ones, when the true test of efficacy of digital presence (in my opinion) is offline behavior. what are people doing in the real world? how are people connecting with your brand outside (or maybe better yet in addition to) the quick click of the mouse.
ramble ramble ramble. sorry, i tend to do that. but the topic is super juicy. thanks, mike et al
I think that Jason makes an excellent point about the Facebook vernacular. Facebook has created an unnecessary dichotomy by separating friends and fan pages. To me, the word "fan" as compared to the word "friend" automatically dismisses fan pages to a lower echelon.
I believe it's Facebook's mistake for making this separation, and it shows a lack of understanding for how social networking allows people who don't know each other to form a strong connection. For example, the street art blog Wooster Collective recently lost it's entire profile and all of its friends. Facebook pulled the plug on their page, claiming they were an entity, not a person, and forced them to start from scratch as a fan page. Silly, yes?
The bottom line is that Facebook hasn't successfully created a platform that benefits marketers. As soon as its not the cool thing to do anymore, advertisers will quickly realize this. I don't believe it's possible for brands to have a voice among fan pages that include things like Day Drinking and Napping.
@gary @mike
I'll be quoting THIS for a while:
I like sleeping, morning sex, and cold milk w/ cereal too.... but I don't know if I am an evangelist (well maybe the sex) of those.
I do, however, tell people they should definitely have cereal with cold milk. I even get a little frustrated when someone uses just a little bit of milk instead of filling their bowl to have the crunchy loops floating in it. It's SO MUCH BETTER when they're drowned in milk. I would probably take the time to let my friends know my position on Facebook.
Just how flying Virgin is always more fun than American; just how I get a little bothered by people who think PC's are better than Apple... They just don't know the other much more beautiful side. The fact that I have emotional reactions to this means that I'm a brand evangelists, right? Don't get me wrong, I won't go crazy if you eat Beerios (Cheerios + Beer) and love PC's, but I'll have something to say about it.
Loving this conversation. Thanks Mike for the #followfriday shout out.
Whether Facebook fans are real fans is sort of the same argument as to whether Facebook friends are real friends. Some, of course, are. But for other people, it’s just a click-connection that might or might not have any more meaning than that. Does that de-value the word “friend” for the people who use it for real friends?
I love Alex Morrison’s examples about duct tape and soap “fans”. It raises again the questions about whether product *quality* is even prerequisite for fandom, or if there are other cultural forces at work.
Do you think the average consumer is really worried about whether the other “fans” are true fans or not? I see a Facebook fan page as a ONE good place for a brand to be because they can post content which people who have *some sort of connection* to the brand can spread around if they so choose. If the people who use your brand are hanging out on Facebook, it makes sense to see if you can engage with them and not annoy them. (Think Superbowl commercial. When a lot of people show up, you want to be on your best behavior). I also think there might be learning for brands around the *types* of people most likely to engage, especially as the numbers increase. But certainly brands shouldn’t be running around, patting themselves on the back saying “Look how many fans I have, I’m so great” at the expense of looking at real business issues.
yes. yes. yes.
Yianni is spot on here, and it seems we all agree.
It is the emotional connection and the actions/thoughts/comments/battles we wage on behalf of our beloved brands that mark our fandom.
The labels are there to make marketing departments feel like creating a facebook page was a good idea after all.
But this gets back to Mike's initial graphic and post about the concentric circles of being a fan. Which makes my thoughts retreads of his deeper thinking. Thanks for allowing me to steal & masquerade, Mike.
I was almost too lazy to write this comment, but I got inspired by the discussion. wow!
In reference to Jason's comment, I was thinking about the things I am a "fan" of on Facebook, and it struck me that these are the things that I talk about and promote in my analog life (yes, I have one).
For instance, I am a Facebook Fan of Del's Lemonade, a frozen lemonade from Rhode Island. Words cannot express how much I love Del's. I am having a Del's cart at my wedding, and I own Del's merchandise. Although I never built my own fanpage for Del's, I still consider myself a real fan. I talk about it to other people all the time. Even though it only took a click of a Facebook button to show that to the world, and to Del's.
I think what we forget about is the fact that people can be "real" fans without leaving public evidence of it on the internet. Is the guy with a 10 year old LiveJournal dedicated to Boba Fett more of a fan than the guy who owns all the star wars action figures, but doesn't tell anyone? No, but the difference is that brands can easily find LiveJournal guy, but maybe not action figure guy.
This is why I think we can't assume that Facebook Fans are any more or less engaged with something than fans who are more, uh, digitally vocal. They might just show their love in different, less visible ways - and arguably (in the case of action figure guy), ways that are more lucrative to the brand. They don't deserve less attention from a brand - they may only have raised their hands on Facebook, but assuming their engagement ends there is exactly that - an assumption.
(I also wholeheartedly agree that most brands do not have hardcore fans. I think I work on most of these. ;)
One random observation: I've noticed that much of the fan-ing on FB as of late has been generic: people are becoming fans of coffee, not Starbucks coffee, chocolate chip cookies, not Chips Ahoy. I was looking at cookie groups the other day and was surprised to find that Oreo and Girl Scout Samoas were the only actual brands with fan pages.
Not sure if that's just a temporary thing or if people are far more willing to become fans of things they like rather than brands they like.
@Alan, I really like the way you talk about the Dove campaign and the duct tape thing. At the Media in Transition 6 conference at MIT last weekend, I was talking to some people about how to build community around brands that aren't usually identified as sources of fan interest, and the conversation was all about going into pre-existing sites that have people who might be "latent fans" or might be cultivatable. For instance, instead of seeking out a fan community for duct tape, seek out "maker" communities and theatre communities, seek out "do it yourself" groups, etc. That's where to start, and honestly, savvy Googling can get you there!
The real fans of an item are easily identifiable: they're the people who take that item and make it their own. Fans of a brand are harder to come by - but if you're good to fans of an item in general, you can work them around to your brand in specific, I think.
Of course, is this reasonable, good strategy, for every brand? I highly doubt it. Some things really are better suited to looking away from fans and focusing on traditional practices. But in that case, you shouldn't be spending a lot of time focusing on Facebook fan communities either except inasmuch as they give you a pool of people to contact (much like an in-house opt-in mailing list of yore), and they cause the name of the brand to be replicated on Facebook pages.
I run a rather large, five year old Dave Matthews Band fan website with forums carrying over 30,000 members.
DMB is an excellent ongoing case study in the use of distributed marketing via social networking tools.
Dave Matthews twittered during the production of their new album, and was the first to announce the free download of the new single.
The band's management seems to have recognized that the official homepage and the official fanclub website my website, and the few other large fan sites were not capturing the size of audience that makes album sales change from gold to platinum.
They have pumped their facebook page, but that is not nearly as relevant to this article as their new contest around Facebook Events.
Details here.This is a twist on the one click "becoming a fan" because in order to qualify for one of the pre-release CDs you must get create a FB event page with one of the top 100 confirmed "attendees." The rules do not stipulate that the "attendees" need to even be located on the same continent as the event, but how could they verify anyway.
Either way, the contest effectively brings the new news of the DMB album release to even those who are not affiliated with someone who is a "fan" of the official band page.
On a second note, there is discussion of the 'dilution' of the term fan. No where is the word 'fan' more important than in the DMB community because modern "fan" engagement was heavily influenced by the company MusicToday which grew out of the management of DMB merchandise and the official fan club.
DMB also has a half dozen up to date websites with communities of fans who go to many, many shows and spend countless hours discussing the band.
I do not fear that the word "fan" is going to be diluted by the progression of one-click fandom on Facebook. Any real DMB fan will be able to determine within about a minute how serious you are about the band.
However, Facebook has shown a history of difficulty selecting words to describe actions and UI, evidence "Boxes."
I've been thinking about this for awhile as well. While maybe FANS are the wrong term, the overall thinking of it is great. Being able to add your liking of a certain brand, team, organization, TV show is something that adds to your online identity. It makes you more of a HUMAN within social media and lets you show a bit of personal interests through the stricter guidelines of social media.
I wrote a little about this on the Carrot Creative blog here: http://carrotblog.com/your-online-identity-add-to-it
Also, totally agree with the argument between if a Facebook fan is a real fan versus if a Facebook friend is a real friend.
@Rob We made a short post about that (and our involvement) as well - DMB is an ideal candidate for all (well considered) efforts social, especially on a platform like Facebook. A big, intentional goal was to get the album ad (event image) in as many newsfeeds as possible. In the end it doesn't matter if the top 100 Events (based on attendee count) have even a fraction of their guests actually show up... because the benefit to DMB is the very visual activity related to the album on Facebook, not the closed-door parties themselves.
As far as the term Fan goes, I tend to think that it may suggest more about a person's self-affiliation and interest (possibly based on promotional incentive) than the reality of a fanbase's strength. Sure, I'll become a FB "fan" of something if it gets me a coupon or discount... but that doesn't always reflect my brand loyalty. I can see the frustration in this as an actual fan- other users flocking to a promotion and proclaiming fandom without much depth to it. Another reason the album Listen Party contest DMB is doing is cool, is that there is some amount of effort involved. Maybe enough effort to lose a few spontaneous "fans" from participating, but certainly not enough to stop TRUE fans" - in fact, winning a listening party might be matter of pride for legit fans. In the meantime, their activity and enthusiasm surrounding their entry will undoubtedly get the word out about the album to the casual or fringe fan. It works well on both sides of "fan."
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