Free marketing

I spent a couple of weekends in Bangkok recently, and my time there was a welcome reminder of the pleasures of big city life. A trip to an actual blues bar, several trips to, perhaps, Bangkok’s biggest bookstore, and a visit to the Chatuchak Weekend Market were among the highlights.

At Bangkok’s weekend market you’ll find a slew of young, up-and-coming designers, who produce cool and original stuff. How Many T-Shirt stood out to me: she designs mainly t-shirts and bags and has a non-Asian, almost Scandinavian style. (I noticed no less than three other Danes browsing in her little stall during the time I was there).

Beyond her great designs, I also admire her simple (and, I am sure, low-cost) marketing. A URL is printed both on the tags in all items and on the front of the little bag I received my purchase in. The URL redirects to her Facebook page, which features lots of photos of her products.

While the page is mostly in Thai, I get the sense that she succeeds in using Facebook in the way that most big corporations wish they could figure out: she establishes a personal connection with her customers. Her Facebook fans are her friends.

Perhaps the reason is that she runs a start-up, and most of her customers are her actual friends. Or perhaps it’s because she names her photo albums things like “Friends and Tees”. Either way, I find myself happy to be her friend-fan, and I’ll definitely visit her again the next time I find myself in Bangkok.

This weekend, Peter Yarad shared a few insights on what works and what doesn’t work on Facebook.

His most helpful point, I think, is that when you’re designing content for your brand’s Facebook page, it’s beneficial to think about what drives engagement on a regular, personal Facebook page:

“A brand on Facebook should be like a casual friend or neighbor and not try to suck people into heavy levels of interaction. What do you do with a friend? Comment on their photos, like their status, vote on their outfit. These types of interactions take seconds, not minutes, and definitely not hours.”

Additional advice includes making sure your content is “lightweight”. If you’re using like blocks or other obstacles, they must lead to very lucrative deals. It is also important to realize that building a solid audience group on Facebook (and anywhere, really) takes consistent engagement and that it will need time to grow.

Finally, the especially good news: Facebook is built for lightweight engagement type activities, and therefore you can use standard and free, though still custom branded, apps for your brand’s campaign.

Yarad also lists what doesn’t work, including:

Treating a Facebook tab like a web page
Offering sweepstakes
Launching photo and video contests
Using Like blocks
Asking for extended permissions

Storyland Communications

Cool Tees and Totes

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