Socialmedialand

Picture courtesy of Media Bistro

It may have been a prediction a month ago but I’d say that fad is well under way only 2 full weeks into the new year. I hear my coworkers complaining about over tweeters (people who twitter more than X times per day and fill up their feed) and discuss the etiquette of unfollowing them. People have started cutting their facebook friends down to only those people whose names are easily recognizable.

For brands with Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, or any other social network presence, this can get tricky. This is like trial under fire – either you stay relevant and make the cut or you find yourself the victim of a massic social layoff.

Burger King is taking a creative approach, made popular by 13 year old girls. They are encouraging people to layoff their other friends in exchange for a coupon good for one free burger. The old “if we’re both busy excluding that person, I won’t end up being the one excluded” tactic. Anyone with a Facebook account can download the Burger King widget where your list of friends will appear. You choose the 10 you’d like to sacrifice and the story will show up in your newsfeed saying “Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper.”

It’s definitely cute, and it shows a remarkable grasp of current trends. Burger King realizes people are predisposed to clean out those few “friends” who aren’t really friends and is making sure that they have a reason to keep Burger King while doing that. It’s kind of a cheap trick though, whose to say that once the coupon is done the person won’t simply turn around and delete Burger King? It’s definitely what a 13 year old girl would do.

I think a better strategy for brands during this time is to focus on staying relevant to their customer base. This is the most important time to make your customer/”friend” your primary concern.

1. Provide information, advice and content that matters to them, your message isn’t what matters now.
   1. This means listening to them in the first place
2. Don’t overwhelm them. This isn’t the time to start blasting messages that could be annoying or spammy feeling. Keep it light.
3. Don’t dissapear entirely, if they haven’t heard from you in a while (or haven’t heard anything worthwhile in a while) it’ll be easier to just delete you while they’re running down the list rather than seriously consider it.
4. Stay real. This is the worst time to seem like just an impresonal brand. That means no autopilot!
5. Set up tools like Qwitter (for Twitter) to manage your friend lists and keep tabs on when/who you’re losing. In some instances it may be worth reaching out to a friend who “quit” you to see if you can repair the relationship. This will at least show you care about them and value them as a customer.

What else am I missing? Leave me a comment!

One Response to “Layoffs – For Your Facebook Friends?”