• by Adam Broitman , Op-Ed Contributor, January 19, 2010

We have arrived at a new era in marketing; an era in which it is nearly as universal for a brand to employ the Facebook fan page in its digital marketing arsenal as it is a search engine. The social capital market has grown-up. For brands, having clout within socially driven media environments is now equally important as having a strong presence within search driven media. In short; if you are not present on Facebook, you will not be present in the lives of many of your consumers.

This new phase in marketing is a gold rush-one not unlike the search gold rush that started around 2004. Brands marketers are amassing fans like so many sticks in a game of pickup; but what does it all mean? Brands had fans long before Facebook existed; fans that would gladly take part in brand programs and groups, wherever they were executed. The Facebook fan page is no more than an extension of the same type of fandom, right? Wrong.

Brands marketers spend an inordinate amount of time luring people to their glorious fan pages. These efforts appear to be no more than an attempt to claim ownership of bragging rights to the largest "fan" base. The question is, are these numbers really indicative of something that will effect positive change in a brand's bottom line, or have we reverted back to a mentality prevalent earlier this decade-a mentality that cherished "hits".

The recent media circus surrounding the Verizon vs. AT&T fan page war would have many marketers believing that the heated battle was largely being fought on Facebook. While the number of fans each brand garnered is important, its importance is anecdotal at best. The real value to brand marketers is in the interaction with those fans (a notion that I have been touting for years).

When thinking of the Facebook fan, one must minimize the importance of the word "fan", and be satisfied with the true nature of this entity; namely, someone who is paying attention. "Fans" can be thought of as opportunities to persuade, or effect perception. In the case of AT&T, many of the "fans" on their page are not fans at all; still, each negative comment is an opportunity to start a conversation and give one-to-one feedback. Perhaps our assessment of the Facebook "fan" needs to be more aligned with the tenets of Net Promoter:

Fans/Interactions= % Active Fans

(Positive Comments/Fans)/Posts: % Fan Promoter

(Negative Comments/Fans)/Posts: % Fan Detractor

These metrics are far more vital than a simple fan count. In addition, tracking these statistics allows for the ability to show qualitative growth over time as opposed the increasingly vacuous count of people that simply clicked, "become a fan".

Much like websites, social media marketing is an imperative. The need to track events in social spaces should be obvious by now; what is not as obvious is what should be tracked and how it should be analyzed. To those marketers interested in a pure quantitative approach, I say: You may want to reexamine your interests.