Bottom Rung

Another Facebook Charade

Walmart has decided to take a more serious gamble on this whole Facebook subject. They have recently started a branded Facebook group called Walmart Roommate Style Match. At 1,183 members (as of Aug. 29th), it is one of the smaller corporate sponsored groups but congrats to Walmart for getting that many people interested in the brand.

It was intended to be a Back to Dorm focused communication that allowed your average university student to get involved and interact with Walmart. A pretty good idea in theory. But as always, the execution is a little bit more complicated than the idea.

Take for example, this post:

David Valenzuela (UCLA) wrote
at 10:54am

Every Toy Recalled In The U.S. Shares The Same Label: Made In China
http://consumerist.com/consumer/chinese-poison-train/every-toy-recalled-in-the-us-shares-the-same-label-made-in-china-270323.php
1.5 Million Thomas & Friends Toys Recalled Due To Lead Paint From China
http://consumerist.com/consumer/chinese-poison-train/15-million-thomas–friends-toys-recalled-due-to-lead-paint-from-china-268658.php
China: Consuming Low Levels Of Poison “Not Harmful”
http://consumerist.com/consumer/diethylene-glycol/china-consuming-low-levels-of-poison-not-harmful-265484.php
Two Hospitalized After Eating Deadly Mislabeled Chinese Pufferfish
http://consumerist.com/consumer/chinese-poison-train/two-hospitalized-after-eating-deadly-mislabeled-chinese-pufferfish-263740.php

Not exactly what the average college student talks about is it!

In fact, the Walmart Facebook page has been hijacked and is now being used as the mouthpiece for anti-Walmart dialogue and discussion. It just goes to show that buying media from Facebook is still a relatively new concept and can be underutilized or completely mishandled very easily.

Target has also purchased a Back to Dorm group on Facebook called Brave New Dorm. Their use of the space is decidedly better than Walmart’s although there still is some nominal chatter about low wages and how they treat their employees. If you put all that aside, there are some really great comments about how much time people spend there and how it is such a great place to go. Plus, they have 6,684 people (as of Aug. 29th) in their group! Nice job.

In summary, it is obvious that people are still working out how to use Facebook in a useful manner to promote their brand. Some, like Walmart, are getting burned a little by their experiments but on the whole marketers are becoming more web savvy everyday. There is so much opportunity here, I can’t wait to see where we go in the future.