What Does Facebook Messages Mean for Marketers?
On Monday Facebook announced Facebook Messages, a new messaging system that essentially funnels e-mail, text and instant messaging, whether on the Web or on mobile phones, through a central point. Users will be encouraged to sign up for an “@facebook.com” email address as part of the system. But Facebook says on its blog that “Messages is not email…We modeled it more closely to chat and reduced the number of things you need to do to send a message.”
Still, that doesn’t mean Messages won’t act like email – and filtered email at that. In fact, Facebook Messages will incorporate a “social in-box” that effectively allows users to prioritize and screen communications. This is what Facebook says about their filtering process:
“It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It’s not that those other messages aren’t important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other Folder where you can look at them separately.
If someone you know isn’t on Facebook, that person’s email will initially go into the Other folder. You can easily move that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will show up there.
You can also change your account settings to be even more limited and bounce any emails that aren’t exclusively from friends.”
This kind of message control is pretty unprecedented and people have been wanting to do this with email (and phone calls) for a long time. Messages reverses the approach to preventing unwanted contact. Instead of having to worry about your email address getting out, you’re now in control of who can actually reach you.
There are a few key things embedded in this statement. First, notice that Facebook is redefining the importance of communications, ranking emails from “friends” over all other emails. In essence, this is the default setting. It means that only friends’ messages will be available for priority viewing, unless the user determines otherwise. Also, notice that Facebook is suppressing emails from people who don’t use Facebook – a not so subtle and perhaps slightly arrogant way of telling them they’d better sign up.
The last two paragraphs, though, contain the potential bombshell for marketers. Basically a user can implement a personal spam filter, determining that everything other than contacts from friends should be screened out.
Some analysts are already predicting doom for marketers. For example, Christopher Penn, blogging for Blue Sky Factory, writes:
“Marketers will have a very hard time getting to the actual inbox unless you’re friends with the person. …you’re in for an era of near-zero inbox placement to your Facebook audience starting very, very soon.”
Penn’s multi-step solution begins with assuring you send “relevant, timely, targeted valuable email” to begin with, but he also urges all marketers to grab a Facebook page and vanity URL if they don’t already have one. (You need at least 25 fans to get a vanity URL.) Then, he says, you basically need to work your butt off to get as many fans for your page as possible. That way you can be viewed as a user’s friend and ultimately pierce the email screen.
Penn’s anticipatory call to action is legitimate, but marketers need to take a deep breath and figure out the real implications of Messages.
The social network’s long-term need for revenue from businesses will likely keep Facebook from completely alienating commercial users. This was in evidence just recently, when Facebook added Deals to Facebook Places in an effort to help local businesses make offers to nearby users.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is planning to include advertising on its messaging page, so marketers will have opportunities to buy display ads. Additionally, while Facebook may preach a friends-based email filter, users may choose not screen out commercial messages of importance to them.
In the end, sensible and prudent action trumps over-reaction. It all comes down to relevancy. Does the marketer have something of value to say to prospective customers – and are those customers receptive to that message?
Pingback: What Does Facebook Messages Mean for Marketers? | Enrichment Depot - Profiting on the Net