Yesterday I went to an event by the Social Media Club Hamburg about how mobile is changing brand communication. It was a short series of presentations followed by a discussion about mobile strategies and piggy backing social media like Facebook.

What stuck with me was the claim that building up a fan base is superior to classical brand marketing.

Classical brand marketing is about buying someone else’s reach. If a magazine reaches 10 mio. people you by some advertising space for a certain timeframe in order for your ad to reach just that audience.

The problem is you can not be too sure that the target audience of that someone is the one you’re aiming at. Pretty sure but not too sure.

Another problem is that after your campaign ends that reach is no longer available to you.

If you spend the same money in campaign that aim at building up a fan base for your Facebook page you will effectively build up your own reach.

The benefit is that you still have a way to communicate to your fans even if the campaign has ended. People tend to not dislike pages.

Another benefit is that a like represents a certain affinity to your brand already.

So yes the claim is correct you do build up your own reach using Facebook fans.

However I think it highly depends on the kind of business/product we’re talking about if a fan base is actually worth something. Sending marketing messages to Facebook fans is like preaching to the choir. It will not produce more consumers but maybe produce some more consumption of the existing consumers. If this fits your business needs then it’s your way to go.

In digital publishing for example the business model is mostly advertising as well and selling the product is not the main focus. For us a fan is only worth something if he eventually clicks on our website. Fan however tend to stay within Facebook.

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