Based on a 2011 social customer survey of our clients, Lithium presents a digest on our discoveries about Facebook as a social media channel. This report identifies what social strategies and tactics brands implement on Facebook, what has work, what hasn’t, and what Facebook has in-store for enterprise communities.

1. what to expect from Facebook

2. share this whitepaper
contents
1 intro
2 what top brands are doing on facebook
4 what works and what doesn’t on facebook
5 what brands should expect from facebook
6 conclusion
subscribe to
request a demo
SocialMatters
we help companies unlock the passion of their customers.
The Lithium Social Customer Suite allows brands to build vibrant customer communities that:
reduce service costs with grow brand advocay with drive sales with innovate faster with
social support social marketing social commerce social innovation
lithium.com | © 2012 Lithium Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
2

3. share this whitepaper
intro
Facebook has been attractive to marketers due to its
unprecedented reach and scale. But what does it really mean
for your brand? While 56% of the Fortune 500 now have a
Facebook page, they continue to struggle with deriving real
ROI from their Facebook investments. Analysts remain divided
on whether or not tangible benefits exist for marketers in the
Facebook channel.
Nevertheless, a Facebook presence has become a
destination for many global brands. To not have a Facebook
page today means not showing up to the social party. Hence,
Lithium has set out to help brands discover how to best
address Facebook marketing.
Here’s what we learned.
1

4. share this whitepaper
what top brands are
doing on facebook
With 600 million users worldwide, if it were a country, Here’s how we sliced it:
Facebook would be the world’s third largest. Spots and all,
The Careful—Companies with a Facebook page and a few
Facebook represents an enormous opportunity for marketers
fans, but not doing anything to drive engagement.
to engage with their audiences to build deeper and longer
lasting social relationships. The Curious—Those who have devoted some resources to
maintaining their Facebook presence and are dabbling with
So, how exactly do companies go about engaging their
customer engagement. Some fans, multiple fan pages, a few
Facebook audiences? What’s the best way to get started?
posts from both fans, and the company.
Who’s doing it right?
The Invested—Brands with a clear Facebook strategy and in
To answer those questions, we researched the Facebook
the early phases of execution. The company is more engaged
pages of over 600 brands. We looked at number of pages,
and posts often, the fans are more engaged and post often.
fans, fan posts, company posts, likes, and custom apps
They’re exploring custom Facebook apps.
available, and we came up with the Facebook ACTivity
Score—a comparative scale that shows how brands are The Committed—Companies dedicated to growth on
engaging their social customers on Facebook. Facebook and have invested significant resources to build a
thriving fan base. Both fans and the company actively post
and a number of Facebook apps are offered.
The Obsessed—Brands who are in it to win it. Trail-blazers
with a rich Facebook engagement strategy, targeted, custom
Facebook apps, a large and active Facebook following. The
FACT Score Chart shows example brands at each level of
engagement on Facebook, from the Curious to the Obsessed.
So, this is what they’re up to. But are they successful? What
does success mean on Facebook?
Lithium defines social success as driving real business
outcomes through social customer engagement. So let’s
talk about Facebook and outcomes.
2

5. share this whitepaper
facebook ACTivity score: get the FACTs
81-100
the obsessed
61-80
fans
the committed
likes
fan posts
fan pages
41-60
the invested company posts
custom apps
app engagement
21-40
the curious
0-20
the careful
3

6. share this whitepaper
what works
and what doesn’t improves our search results
on facebook
creates awareness of our brand, products, or services
allows us to communicate our marketing message effectively to customers
We looked to brands with deep experience engaging creates beneficial customer-to-customer engagement
customers through a variety of social channels to help us
answer that question. We wanted to know how experienced
empowers customers to help one another with pre-sales purchase questions
community managers, customer engagement, and social
strategists saw Facebook as part of their overall engagement
empowers customers to help one another with post-sales support questions
strategy, so we asked our customers.
In a Social Customer Survey early in 2011, we asked leading gives us metrics we need to assess program goals
marketers about their expectations for Facebook, their
successes and challenges with the channel, and how their gives us a good sense of how our customers are feeling
endeavors there compared with those in their Lithium brand
community. Here’s what they told us—they said that Facebook is: helps us identify particularly valuable customers
1. Great for outbound communication. Indeed, the
creates goodwill for our brand in social channels
reach and scale of Facebook provides a real benefit
to marketers. When it comes to creating awareness,
Lithium customers say Facebook delivers. community effectiveness facebook effectiveness
2. The place to create social goodwill for the brand. Here
again, for size and visibility, a Facebook presence is a allows brands to benefit from social media. When
“must have” for presenting a sense ofsocial goodwill. customers engage with each other, they build the content
that drives SEO, that can be used for unassisted customer
3. Not useful for gathering customer feedback. When it
support, etc, and they become more loyal and more
comes to keeping a finger on the pulse on customer
satisfied. With comments and status updates disappearing
sentiment, gathering ideas for product innovation,
from the Facebook Wall in minutes and hours, opportunities
measuring customer loyalty, finding influencers
for peer-to-peer engagement is limited.
and advocates, or conducting market research, our
customers told us that Facebook has room to grow. 5. Not a tool for building trust among social customers.
Without peer-to-peer engagement, there is no
4. Lacking in opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement.
opportunity to motivate and reward behavior—two key
Peer-to-peer engagement is a driving force behind
components of trust-building in social networks.
getting social customers to create the content that
4

7. share this whitepaper
what brands
should expect
from facebook
Now that we know what top brands are doing on Facebook, your brand is present and existing followers need to hear
what’s working and what isn’t, how can we align our from you in order to stay engaged. Consistently updated,
expectations appropriately for our Facebook initiatives? Here’s fresh, and timely content are especially crucial as Facebook
what we think brands should expect from Facebook in the Wall content decays very quickly.
current environment:
Expect to serve your customers on Facebook.
Expect your customers to want you to be on Facebook. With 91% of social customers reporting the abandonment of
Most industry analysts and social media thought leaders at least one brand on Facebook or Twitter, we can see that
agree, Facebook is a platform not to be dismissed. If you have the audience is fickle. As we’ve seen in online venues before,
no Facebook presence at all, get one. Average Internet users driving people to a social site without providing an outlet for
spend more time on Facebook than Google, Yahoo! Wikipedia, their needs invites a peak-and-trough customer engagement
Amazon and Microsoft combined according to Altimeter cycle rather than a path toward sustained increases in
Group’s Jeremiah Owyang. Social customers especially customer lifetime value.
expect brands to engage them where they already are, and
Q&A, moderation, and recognition features enable the peer-
they are already on Facebook in droves.
to-peer interactions needed to get your Facebook fans to start
Expect Facebook to help expand your reach. helping each other so they can real value from their visits to
For its sheer size and viral features, Facebook is generally your Facebook page—either by finding the information they
considered a smashing success at the dissemination of need or by being recognized for their contributions.
marketing messages. Our customers tell us Facebook
provides them with real awareness benefits and the key
channel for demonstrating a posture of social goodwill.
Expect to participate—often.
We all know by now that jumping on Facebook or grabbing
a Twitter handle for your company isn’t a social strategy.
Frequent posts, lots of sharing and liking—even custom
Facebook apps—are in order if you hope to get the most Creating opportunities to
benefit from Facebook page(s). New visitors want to know
identify and amplify trusted
voices on Facebook will
help to derive real business
outcomes from the channel.
5

8. share this whitepaper
conclusion
Experienced social marketers report that a campaign-based
approach to Facebook focused on simple dissemination of
discrete marketing messages is worth the effort. But if you’re
looking for real business outcomes—increased customer
loyalty, deeper customer insights, increased demand, more
sales leads, competitive advantage—marketers must move
beyond simply counting fans and likes.
Systems of rank and reward motivate social customers
to contribute and act on your behalf, building a sustained,
profitable enthusiasm for your brand. Creating opportunities
to identify and amplify trusted voices on Facebook will help to
derive real business outcomes from the channel. Fostering
productive peer-to-peer relationships among fans is essential
for turning your Facebook presence from a staticdestination
into a vibrant community that meets customer needs,
rewards visitors for their participation, and motivates
Facebook fans to become your brand advocates.
Lithium social software helps the world’s most iconic brands to build brand nations—vibrant online communities of passionate social customers.
Lithium helps top brands such as AT&T, Sephora, Univision, and PayPal build active online communities that turn customer passion into social media
marketing ROI. For more information on how to create lasting competitive advantage with the social customer experience,
visit lithium.com, or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and our own brand nation – the Lithosphere.
lithium.com | © 2012 Lithium Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved
6