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This post comes courtesy of FPI lead strategist Art Cannon, whose intellect is too mighty to be traded for cider (even if it is from Heineken). Watch this space for guest posts from Art and others in the coming months, as we stretch our content legs.
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By Art Cannon
While I was catching up on Twitter and settling in for the weekend last week, I got the following update from actor Nathan Fillion (not that we’re buds, I just loved the show Serenity is all, so he gets a follow):
I can’t decide whether to be excited or upset by Mr. Fillion’s bet (it more than worked, as he later reported that @QuestionAnders netted 2,000 followers from it). All I know is that Nathan broke the Social Contract, or at least laid it bare for us to examine for a moment.
Social media’s fundamental promise to those who have embraced it (and the inevitable social marketing that’s followed its users, since someone’s got to pay for this party) has been premised on two things: intimacy and immediacy. In a single tweet, Nathan managed to turn his followers into a commodity. He packaged us up as an audience to monetize, with little regard for valuing our composition.
I feel like I just watched the scene in Almost Famous where Penny Lane was horse-traded away for $50 and a case of Heineken.
Speaking of Heineken, they’re taking the precision approach to social currency. They calculate that social media fans of their brands are worth an additional 80 bottles/$308 sales per fan, annually. That translates to an additional $25 million+ for their Bulmer’s cider brand in the UK. They obviously have no compunction about putting a price on our friendship (though I suspect it’s being calculated in the name of budget justification).
Together, actor and brewer have framed the extremes of an essential valuation – from throwing around their social currency literally to measuring exact ROI. These extremes raise questions about our social media expectations on three levels.
Transparency – This ties into the intimacy dimension of the Social Contract – that we’re in on the joke, and that we can see who benefits when we interact with brands. In each of these examples, this transparency remains true. Nathan explains the premise for his request. In Heineken’s case, if you haven’t figured out in your own life that “friending” a consumer product increases loyalty and might increase sales, well, you just come sit over here by me.
Appropriate measurements & precision – Fillion lost a bar bet, and pulled a figure out of his backside as a reasonable recompense for the winner, while Heineken is trying to quantify fan value in order to keep their efforts rolling, while selling some cider in the process. One side looks casual and carefree, the other almost a little too precise. I’d be wary of anyone who can’t ballpark what social marketing is worth to a brand in the marketing mix, but I’d be just as skeptical of someone who has it figured out to the penny.
Who retains the value of an audience? – What’s fascinating is that both these audience valuations work, within the confines of social media. Even better, each respective brand gets to retain most of the value of their audiences, with little lost in in friction/fees to Twitter and Facebook.
Now, here’s the space to watch: As Facebook scrambles to make up with Wall Street, and Twitter reins in its experience yet again (to prevent itself from becoming a dumb pipe), will this economy of sharing remain so efficient? If we catch Twillionaires like Nathan Fillion trying to pay for gas in followers, we can be sure that another shoe’s about to drop.