Last week Forrester Research published a report criticizing Facebook for its shortcomings to marketers. It was countered quickly by many leaders and journalists in the marketing community, who
criticized the analysis, methodology and tone -- such as fellow Spinster
Joseph Jaffe,
Matt Owen of Econsultancy,
Andrea Huspeni in Entrepreneur, and
Rick Munarriz in
USA Today, among others.
Contrary to the Forrester
report, the fact is that marketers are placing more faith and investment in the world’s largest social networking platform. This was evidenced most recently by Facebook’s strong quarterly
earnings report. I also see continued growth in Facebook advertising spend among my company’s clients. These are not one-off blips. They are undeniable indicators of positive momentum happening
right now.
I’d like to go further and offer some additional reasons why marketers should continue to invest and place confidence in Facebook. It is important to disclose that I work at a
Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer (sPMD). While I have a vested interest in the success of the Facebook platform, my role has also provided me a deep understanding of Facebook’s
actions and commitment to marketer success.
Here are four key areas that exemplify Facebook’s ongoing commitment to, and progress toward, making marketers successful:
Priority
on marketing outcome. Facebook is clear: Social metrics like Fan growth, Likes and Shares are important, but they are a means to an outcome. Ultimately, marketing outcomes matter -- like, for
example, moving products off of shelves. What’s important is effecting real marketing objectives and delivering performance measurements.
Targeting innovation. Facebook is
steadily advancing what has become the world’s most sophisticated audience targeting system. In addition to its standard targeting capabilities, it continues to invest in third-party data
partnerships and experiments with companies like Datalogix, Axciom and Epsilon. It also continues to develop and collaborate with marketers on more sophisticated solutions for integrating CRM
databases, as well as retargeting audiences across websites and mobile apps.
Simplification. Facebook admitted it made advertising too complicated. It’s solving that problem by
simplifying workflow and investing in solutions that address specific marketing objectives like brand awareness, in-store sales, online sales and mobile connections. Moreover, it continues to invest
in its measurement and attribution solutions directly against those objectives.
Marketing partners. Facebook will not, and cannot, build everything. As demonstrated by its sPMD program,
it will build a global platform with core differentiators, and then work with partners to extend the platform to solve marketers’ real challenges -- whether they be very advanced, or specialized
in niche verticals. Driving investment in specialized, advanced partners means driving investment in marketers’ success.
To conclude, Facebook has scale where most everyone spends their
day, on every device. In doing so, it provides marketers with the ability to reach micro segments at scale, within a deeply engaged environment that can influence people’s perceptions and
behaviors. Marketers are experiencing successes with Facebook, and the hard proof lies in their increasing investment in the platform.
Sure, Facebook is imperfect. Social marketing is hard,
and we’re still figuring it out. Facebook, its partners and marketer clients must continue working together to raise the bar. As a vested participant in this journey, I can assure you: We are
all committed to marketer success.