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Why the Army has more fans than CBS

According to an upcoming report by Sysomos, the top 96th percentile (or top 4%) of fan pages have 10 thousand or more fans.

Sometime in late November 2009, the Army Experience Center's Facebook fan page celebrated its 10-thousandth fan. It's continued to add 200 to 300 more per week since then.

 Considering the vast amount of brands and products with fan pages on Facebook, what put the Army ahead of a network like CBS with its well known Survivor and CSI franchise?  This isn't about CBS whatsoever - that was just a randomly selected comparison - the Army AEC's fan page has approached social media on its terms, and is the better for it.

• Community.  The AEC didn't dictate their community in advance and structure content solely for them. Instead, it listened to the community and found several under-served segments that needed a voice.  Content was and continues to be shaped by the needs of the overall community and not simply what branding planners crafted.
• Relevant.  The Army community is active - one post generates an average of 45 responses or shares. The topics are current and in interest to the online community.  More importantly, because the community helps define the content, it self-regulates polarizing fans intent on disruption. Topics are relevant to the communities interest, not something that would normally come out of PR or planning.
• Local.  The AEC itself is a physical location set in Philadelphia that draws thousands of visitors every month. But it's still a single location that serves a 10-12 mile radius.  The content and community on the fanpage expands throughout the country (and world) by providing local content (events, pictures, personal experiences) without excluding fans that are there in spirit.
• Authentic. What makes the AEC fan page interesting is that actual soldiers are part of the community. When questions are asked about Army life, enrollment or benefits - they're met with real answers, not directed to a website or FAQ. 
• Engaging. Polls and crowd-informed decisions are common on the AEC fan page. They allow the community to shape and mold topics and discussions - instead of giving them a one-way communication.

While many fan pages have polls and pictures, they often don't attract active fans without give-aways or promotions. Why?  Because they've missed the message that social media is about the community, not the brand.  The brand may participate - and may be embraced - but if it's heavy handed, bullying, or a one-way speaker it'll be dismissed as just another commercial.

Has Facebook Finally Killed The Microsite?

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Mahatma Ghandi

Facebook's popularity and reach is forcing businesses to re-think how they're communicating with their customers. The audience reach for the US Facebook market is rapidly approaching the number of television homes in the US.  Its now estimated that consumers spend more time on Facebook on average than they do answering emails or shopping online. Clearly, the size and reach of Facebook represents a shift in how consumers are spending their time.

Within the last 12 months, Facebook 'fan-pages' have gone from a novel experiment to replacements for microsites.  TGI Fridays, ABC, Best buy, Adidas & Pringles among other leading brands have used Facebook's reach and popularity to address their audience in place of microsites.

Is the microsite finally dead?

In part, yes. Microsites originally emerged as a mechanism to digitally communicate to a specialized audience, filling the need for a highly immersive online experience.  Of course this largely applies for consumer product promotion & discovery, and has less impact on B2B or transactional based websites.

Typically, microsites were created outside of a brand's website - ostensibly for several reasons; desire to decouple a promotion from the clutter of a monolithic website;  ability to rapidly embed rich media without breaking content systems; disposability; ease of search optimization; and creating a community of interested consumers.

Each of these goals to an extent, are better satisfied with fan pages than with microsites. With FBML and Flash, anything that can be materially created in a website can live within the boundaries of a facebook.  Rich media, engagement mechanisms, analytics and tracking are all readily available.  Deployment is simple, and the community is built-in.

Fan Page Advantages

Fan pages offer a few benefits over microsites as well; Facebook is implicitly trusted by consumers- on par with the USPS,  WebMD & Yahoo.  There's less concern that a fanpage will 'take over' your browser, or scam you.  By merit of the Terms of Service enforced by the Facebook platform, fan-pages must behave within certain limits, engendering a sense of validation and acceptance. To illustrate, when was the last time you heard of a Fan page installing spyware?

Another advantage is the inherent identity and authenticity of the consuming fan. Every person of Facebook has (at least at the time of signup) a working email address. They provide access to their real names, location & demographic attributes without the page having to ask for it.  Consumers share the information because they control access and can easily "de-friend" a page, more succinctly and reliably than opting out of an email list. All without the worry that their information is now being sold to a direct marketing mailing house list.

Fan Page Disadvantages

While there are incentives to use fanpages, there are faults; Limited User-Experience control by merit of the facebook wrapper and screen footprint;  Inability to keep information on fans in perpetuity;  Not having access to email lists for ongoing communication; And the constantly shifting API and Terms of Service. Finding fan pages is often accomplished through viral means, making proven search techniques less effective.  Or worse, look-alike fan pages confusing people into avoiding them all together.

Fan Page or Microsite?

For the moment, fan pages represent a new, innovate alternative to stand alone microsites. Fan pages have most the benefits and a few upsides compared to microsites, but do come with tradeoffs.

Today the solution is to utilize both. Build microsites that take advantage of search optimization, consistent experience, deep linking.  Integrate with Facebook connect to leverage the social community within the microsite.  Next, optimize the website to be used as a fan-page within the structure of the facebook platform. Create incentives for fans to interact within the community and actively utilize the communication channel that your fans have opened up.

In time, social platforms will become less of a destination, and more of a backdrop to the overall internet experience.  In the meantime, marketers, advertisers and product developers must embrace the shifting landscape as an opportunity to better reach their audience.