Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Are Facebook Fan Pages Effective Marketing Tools?


Harvard Business Review reports in the March issue that companies using Facebook and its fan page application to market themselves to customers can significantly increase:
  • Sales
  • Word-of-mouth marketing
  • Customer loyalty
According to research at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business cited in the article, Facebook fans of Dessert Gallery (DG), a popular Houston-based café chain:
  • Made 36 percent more visits to DG's stores each month.
  • Spent 45 percent more of their eating-out dollars at DG.
  • Spent 33 percent more at DG's stores.
  • Had 14 percent higher emotional attachment to the DG brand.
  • Had 41 percent greater psychological loyalty toward DG.

Does this apply to other businesses? When Duck brand duct tape used its fan page to introduce its digital camouflage duct tape to its nearly 1 million Facebook fans, the company sold hundreds of rolls online in minutes.

What's the best use of a fan page that you've seen?

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