Does Advertising Your Facebook URL Actually Work?

Facebook June 2, 2010 25 Comments @niallharbison

We work in the suburbs of Ireland and across the road there is a local pub that does a great roast lunch and has about four or five old men sitting around the bar drinking whiskey all day. I recently noticed when browsing through the menu that they had added some Facebook logos with their address and I remember thinking at the time how innovative that was for a small local pub. Imagine my surprise when I walked down for my lunch yesterday and saw that they had repainted the pub to include their Facebook URL covering half the facade of their pub. I pretty much nearly fell over with shock after seeing it for the first time. Now the first thing that I would say is that they have some issues with the actual text and spacing of the URL but it got me to thinking about placing Facebook URLs on your marketing material in general. Does it actually work?

Do People Actually Click Through?

I would say from our experience here as a company and from my own personal experience people don’t always click through to the Facebook page URL. Most people will generally notice the URL and think “wow that is cool must check it out later” but the truth is that by the time you get back to your computer the thought has long left your head. Now you could of course be one of the increasing amount of people to access Facebook through your mobile in which case you could like the page instantly. I’ve seen brands and businesses spend huge amounts of money in ad campaigns that blast their URL (either Facebook or microsites) out to millions of people but I have to say by in large the take up is incredibly poor. I’d be more inclined to spend the money online if all you want to do is get people to your page or website because the conversion rates will be far higher.

What Is It Doing To Your Brand?

I see examples every single day of the week where brands and businesses are using Facebook because they have heard that they have to and not because they should be and actually have a good business use for it. This particular pub in question might be using Facebook really well but is there maybe a more subtle and effective way of letting it’s patrons know about Facebook? What happens if Facebook turns in to the next Bebo? The painters will have to be called in again pretty quickly. I also see brands advertising Facebook pages where there is little or no interaction on the page and no reason to be sending people to Facebook. At the end of the day Facebook is just a platform in the same way that Google is. Don’t be caught up in trying to be cool and telling the whole world that you are on Facebook just for the sake of it. By the way for what it is worth the pub across the road are actually doing a decent job with their own Facebook page. I am off to paint the front of our own offices now as I can’t have them stealing all our likes on this street

Tags

branding
Facebook
fans
likes
links
traffic
URLs

Comments

Ken Mooney

Such a big FB URL seems pretty dangerous to me, especially for a pub: none (or very little) of their business can be carried out online, so while it helps with marketing, it’s kind of intrusive here, don’t you think? How many non-locals, tourists or non-internet savvy customers are now going to start referring to it as the Facebook pub and completely lose sight of the Kiely’s bit.

Good luck with painting the logo on the building: if you need someone to hold the ladder…!

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Well I think most pubs should defo be doing this sort of stuff but its just how they advertise it that is the big thing. No harm being known as the Facebook pub if it brings in more business but the lads drinking in there have very little knowledge of what Facebook actually is

Paul Dunne

Now that made me laugh, looks like the idea created by an upper management older guy who loves his buzz words, “we should be on facebook on the interweb, that will get us loads of younger patrons”. Although they do have good live music at night so maybe its going to link in with that, would be a good idea for staff to go around every night taking photos then hand out business cards with the address and ask people to tag themselves in the photos.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yep something like that makes a lot of sense alright Paul! Getting the patrons involved in the evening and getting them to contribute the content would be ideal. I have nothing for respect for this pub by the way because although they are very quiet at times they are not sitting back and just crying about it but are instead on Facebook giving it a lash! Top marks for effort!
M. D. Smith

Paul, that is a great idea. It works really well here in the states. To give your customers more controll of viral marketing is truly what makes it viral.

http://lifescience.ie/blog Brian Christensen

Do you not think it’s quite unclear at to how the above is advertised, i.e. the url is hyphenated whereas the above sign isn’t? That certainly confused me for a while, combined with the fact that the actual url is far too long. I think it’s important to have a great FB url, but given the choice, like SZ I would be directing people to our own website whenever possible.

Brian

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yeah no doubt that people need a short snappy URL and I think that is one of the biggest problems the pub above has! Not short and not easy to remember and funny spelling with the caps etc! They were not there in the short URL class on Facebook but they were certainly there for the shout about your URL as loud as you can class!
http://www.NotesFromKris.com NotesFromKris

Speaking of short URLs to remember, I hit upon this one when looking for … well, I don’t remember at this point… but http://www.beerandhotdogs.com was the website. Their FB page can be found by typing in beerandhotdogs… how cool is that?! No wondering what they sell. Nowadays you have to think of snappy URLs if your business name is too generic or based on a name that someone can’t remember.

http://www.eightytwenty.ie Philip Macartney

Its not the best but at least there is effort to connect with their consumers. Not everyone “gets it” straight away but we have to applaud effort. I saw a lot of small businesses who wanted to “stick something up on the Bebo there” and while there was no idea on their part of how to run a social media marketing initiative, at least they were acknowledging the medium as viable. A simple thumbs up or “like us on Facebook” would be better but good to see well known businesses hanging their Facebook profile over the door rather than hiding it in the attic.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Phil for once you are actually talking some sense here. It must be early enough in the morning for you to still be sober! True that better people talking about it than not talking about it

Lucy

Confusing or not, they’ve gone viral, we’re talking about them, so looks like it’s worked!
http://gallopinggreen.com Stephen

I agree with Lucy. Of course, the really good pubs have Facebook pages created by fans, not the owners
Martin Brock

As Lucy says, it’s got people talking. It reminds me of Newcastle United renaming their ground to sportsdirect@stjamesspark or whatever it was. That had people up in arms for a while but ultimately, it was the performance on the pitch that mattered. My feeling is that as long as the pub serves decent beer, people won’t care what it says on the outside.
http://www.longlex.com Des Byrne

Interesting post. I cannot resist contributing on behalf of L’Onglex! We relaunched in January and decided to show http://www.facebook.com/longlex and http://www.twitter.com/longlex on the back of pack.
This was a deliberate statement of intent on our part. We are targeting a demographic who are active on Facebook and right from the start our marketing strategy was to have a strong online presence.
We know for a fact that no one followed the links before we started spending money online. However we have had some positive feedback about it and we feel many people notice. OK they don’t click through but offline to online is notoriously difficult anyway. We feel putting these addresses on pack is not a fad. It seems quite natural to have them along with our web address and email (although not in large caps). We want to integrate social media fully into our business and make it clear to our customers that we are consistently doing this, so yes we also put it on our notepaper etc.
Brendan

Could this have something to do with the fact that Kiely’s Donnybrook have also started pushing their FB page quite hard with signs inside and outside!?
http://twitter.com/brendanmccoy Brendan McCoy

Without the benefit of a compelling CTA some of the national press and 48 sheet advertising campaigns that I was involved in only generated clicks on the displayed URLs that could be counted using fingers and toes.

However running any sort of campaign without a URL seems folly in this day and age and, when you think of the number of half empty pubs on weekend nights, you can’t knock Kielys for trying. While the corporate domain might be king for big brands, Kielys customers are more likely to be clicking around on Facebook so you can’t knock either them for rather crudely pushing their page over the site. The content on the page might be a bit rough in places but for the price of a banner and a few minutes work each afternoon they have a good chance of drawing in a few extra customers.
http://www.design58.com mark longbottom

as others have said it is down to what is done on the page, the more they encourage people to enter the pub from the page the better. once they have face to face contact with cutomers they can encourage them to go back to the page for information, discounts, events, hidden extras and so on and so on.

Maybe they will make a simply zesty cocktail for your office to pop in for….
Tracy Skis

In my experience, when I send out email campaigns and put a Facebook (and Twitter) icon in the footer I get a surprising amount of click throughs. This is not the case for my company web site.
http://johnpaulaguiar.com John Paul Aguiar

I think for the amount of time it takes to add your FB url to places, then why not. Any result would be good.

But do you really want the first place people learn about you and your business to be on FB? Seems counter productive.
Pingback: banner advertising – What is a Advertising Banner? – Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers
Pingback: Facebook Advertising Companies – Latest Facebook Advertising Companies news – Does adding a Facebook URL to marketing material actually work?
Pingback: When social media comes in to the bathroom you know things have gone too far
Pingback: Facebook Advertising – Latest Facebook Advertising news – Does adding a Facebook URL to marketing material actually work?
Pingback: Sunmai Studios WSU stuff » A Facebook Case Study
Amnah Khan

I think that rather than having it so big out there instead of their brand name, they should just mention it on the side, and those who would care, would care regardless of whether it is up there big or not.

Does Advertising Your Facebook URL Actually Work?

Do People Actually Click Through?

What Is It Doing To Your Brand?

Tags

branding
Facebook
fans
likes
links
traffic
URLs

Tags

Other Posts You May Like

Crazy Father Shoots Daughter’s Laptop To Pieces Over Facebook Message

Facebook Mobile Apps Platform Sees 60 Million Users in 3 Months

Creepy Facebook App gives you a taste of Alzheimers

Increase your followers : add a Facebook subscribe button to your site

Comments