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This is a question many marketing managers are asking today.  One of our own, Utpal Dholakia, Associate Professor of Marketing at Rice University investigated that question — and it appears that “Facebook changed customer behavior for the better.”   The quick and dirty answer is here on Fast Company.  A longer discussion and better description of the experimental design can be found here at Harvard Business Review.  HBR is the better source, but I was not sure if registration was required to see it. both articles are short and to the point.  Thanks for a great study of a timely issue Utpal.

This might be a good example of an experiment that could be used with market research or some useful data when talking about Facebook or other social media in Promotion.

One of the objectives of this blog is to bridge the gap between editions of our text books. Some of the social media platforms being used today were not widely known just a couple of years ago. And marketing managers are still trying to figure out how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter. So this blog provides some examples you can bring into the classroom. Ford has done a nice job, and Grant McCracken describes their success with last year’s launch of the Fiesta Movement campaign in “How Ford Got Social Marketing Right,” BusinessWeek, January 8, 2010.

We are amazed at how little concern our students (and my kids) have about their privacy.  Are our students aware of what they sacrifice and the potential future problems they may encounter with this carefree attitude?  You might find it helpful to assign or discuss “Rogue Marketers Can Mine Your Info on Facebook,” in Wired, January 5, 2010.

Thank you Stephen Baker.  Bill and I are working hard on develop new frameworks and conceptual organizers for our books so that we can help students better understand social media.  The current editions of Basic Marketing and Essentials of Marketing do not include references to Twitter (which was not around when we last revised) and only a few referemces to Facebook and other social media.  Our books deal extensively with the Internet and its implications, but social media is the next wave.  While Baker’s article “Beware Social Media Snake Oil” (BusinessWeek, December 3, 2009) doesn’t bring clarity to these issues, it calls attention to the hype.  We are trying to carefully revise our books to reflect an understanding about how social media can be effectively used as part of an organization’s integrated marketing communications plan.

As a quick aside, we will miss Stephen Baker’s insightful articles at BusinessWeek.  When Bloomberg bought BusinessWeek, Stephen Baker was not offered a job.  If you are interested, you can follow his blog at thenumerati.net.

This New York Times article, (”How to Market Your Business With Facebook,” November 12, 2009) probably has more detail than you might want to get into in an introductory marketing class.  Still, I included it because marketing instructors might find it helpful to have this greater insight into Facebook (something our students no doubt know about much better than us) and how it can be used in marketing.   There are also some interesting examples that could be used in class.

This post on the ReadWriteWeb blog (”40% of People on Facebook ‘Friend’ Brands“) descibes a survey with the above claim — among others.  The sample of “1000 connected consumers” suggests we are dealing with a particularly digital segment of the market.  Still, the results suggest that consumers may be willing to interact with brands on social media.

I know that I am trying to figure it out and get a handle on it. These two presentations have helped me.

I’m not sure if these presentations are better used in the classroom (do our students already know this?) – or our offices (do marketing faculty get it?). I showed the first one in class and my students appreciated it. The “Social Media Revolution” (top one below) has data that really can be a surprise. While I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of the data presented, I did not find people on the web arguing with the numbers. Usually the web will “out” any bad data. The second video is more a tutorial — but still very helpful if you are not up on social media.

Do any of you have other online video slide shows that do a good job with this topic? (click on comments in the gray banner below to share)

This short article notes Safeway’s use of Facebook as a way to distribute coupons (“Safeway Delivers Facebook Users Exclusive Coupons,” Supermarket News, October 9, 2009). Many companies are trying to figure out how to use social media like Facebook.  I was surprised to see that nearly 30,000 “fans” on Safeway’s Facebook page (note – now more than 30,000).