With Facebook being caught up in the US Midterms Elections, you’d figured they will be too busy for any other shenanigans. You were wrong.
Despite having to put out fires all over the place, Facebook managed to launch 9 physical stores at Macy’s around the U.S., which will be opened until February 2019.
Why is the biggest digital marketing giant launching physical retails?
Despite this move, Facebook has clarified that they are not actually advocating physical retails or looking into one.
Every Facebook physical store contained products from small businesses, which have employed the advertising tools at either Facebook or Instagram. As a result, there were a wide variety of products from small businesses, including some rather peculiar ones as well.
The aim was to give small businesses a hand and provide them with a physical retail store, while Facebook covered the costs and decor. Facebook has always supported small brands in various ways, and it should not surprise anyone.
The surprising aspect is how they did it.
Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Advertising are some of the solutions they’ve developed for small businesses, and all of them are digital. With the exponential growth of ECommerce, Facebook utilising a physical store to help small brands is out-of-character for them.
What do these physical stores of Facebook imply?
Budget is what holding many eCommerce stores from having a physical store. If given a choice, small businesses would not mind having a physical store.
Physical stores are very helpful tools to have, and one of the key benefits is the boosting of brand profiles and reputation.
Having a physical store ensures the customers a contact point in the event of any issues, which puts their minds at ease. It also allows the experiencing of the products on a deeper and higher level, which a digital screen cannot afford.
Therefore, a physical store has many additional benefits for any brands and businesses looking to expand, making it a worthy investment.
Should brands be focusing on digital or outdoor?
If you have the budget to do so, outdoor marketing is an important and overlooked tactic to consider.
Our advice is to create a strategic marketing strategy that is consistent and connects with the audiences well, whether it is digital or outdoor.
The new-age marketing strategy should focus on utilising an omnichannel strategy – using multichannel to provide a seamless shopping experience. In fact, some brands have already begun rolling out this specific strategy.
However, this requires proper planning and tailoring the experience in every channel that suits your brand and resonates with your audience.
Want to create a marketing strategy that is worthy of your brand?
Speak to our branding team that has experience in handling both outdoor and digital strategies. We’re confident that we will be able to create the right marketing strategy for your brand that is creative and effective.
Table of Contents
Why is the biggest digital marketing giant launching physical retails?
What do these physical stores of Facebook imply?
Should brands be focusing on digital or outdoor?
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After Facebook’s recent scandal with leaked user information and the US Election fiasco, the social media giants have decided to become more transparent with their platform. In early April, Facebook announced they were making ads transparent and marking political ads as special cases.
This has been a long time coming, given the chatter on Russian meddling since the US Elections fiasco ended 2 years ago.
How does this affect your business?
Ad transparency means anyone and everyone can now view all the ads you are running. This includes your target audience and unfortunately, your competition. The good news is that they can only see the content and the type of ad but nothing on the data and statistics that come with it.
So what should you do?
When we talk about talking selfies and stories on our socials, which side are you on? Instagram, Facebook or… Snapchat? When Facebook attempted to buy Snapchat recently, they were rejected despite a whopping bid of $3 billion. In response, Facebook leveraged on their acquisition of Instagram to compete against Snapchat, by launching Instagram stories or what’s widely known at Instastories.
Talk about life’s regrets.
With the purchase, Instagram’s platform soared in terms of the number of users and ads, while Snapchat struggled to keep up. Facebook also launched Facebook Stories to add options for the avid social media users. From there, Snapchat started to look more and more like an Instagram copy instead of the other way around, as they struggled to innovate to pull ahead of its ‘successor’.
Until now.
Snapchat recently launched a gaming platform, similar to WeChat, in an attempt to improve user engagement and move ahead of their rival. They released a series of Snapchat filter games and Augmented Reality (AR) games that users can play on the platform.
Most notably, the AR Tennis game against Serena Williams is a clear sign that Snapchat’s advanced AR technology is going to become their selling point.
Y’all seeing this? Get your chance to battle @serenawilliams – you wont win 😂 but try your best and share your high score. pic.twitter.com/sXuxtImgJI
— Alexis Ohanian 🧠 (@alexisohanian) July 2, 2018
Credit: Alexis Ohanian Sr.
Snapchat games provide an additional tool for businesses to adapt. (YAY!) That is always welcomed for creative people (*wink wink*) to adapt for marketing.
Does Snapchat still matter?
Well, it really depends.
Snapchat numbers have risen steadily over the past year, with more and more youths adopting the platform. We’ve to admit, they’ve got really nice filters. Heh. This means any strategy or business targeting youths have to take Snapchat into serious consideration.
Incorporating gaming has given other platforms (aka Facebook) a boost before and it should do the same for Snapchat.
What can businesses do with this information?
Consider playing around with Snapchat’s functions and ads viewing if you are unfamiliar with the platform. Businesses can also start looking into adapting filters and AR games to help their own cause.
Do keep the demographics of Snapchat in mind while developing and utilising them and tie in to your branding. It will be a waste of marketing dollars otherwise.
If you want to utilise them, and you are having trouble with incorporating into your brand, consult an agency to help you.