Build­ing rela­tion­ships fos­ters brand loy­al­ty, impor­tant because a repeat cus­tomer spends 67 per­cent more than a new one (BIA/Kelsey). Build­ing loy­al­ists is impor­tant because, for many busi­ness­es, 20 per­cent of cus­tomers, their best cus­tomers, account for 80 per­cent of their rev­enue. When think­ing about grow­ing a Face­book fan base it’s easy to think first about get­ting a lot of fans, but there are good rea­sons for focus­ing less on quan­ti­ty and more on qual­i­ty of your fan rela­tion­ships.

1. It’s Easier To Tell A Better Story

This year, more mon­ey will be spent by brands in the effort to engage audi­ences through sto­ries, instead of tra­di­tion­al adver­tise­ments, than any year in his­to­ry, accord­ing to Con­tent­ly.

Cleve­land Clin­ic shares posts about improv­ing and under­stand­ing our health with posts about food, exer­cise, sleep and what to expect with dif­fer­ent types of ill­ness­es. The top-lev­el top­ics they share are fair­ly uni­ver­sal and help the clin­ic get a lot of top-lev­el engage­ment. But they also cre­ate great engage­ment by reach­ing out to a small­er base.

Their post “Can you kiss after chemo?” did­n’t engage as many peo­ple, but those who shared were invest­ed in the sto­ry. Peo­ple who care about this sto­ry may not be asso­ci­at­ed in any oth­er way, but under­stand­ing the truths and myths of lov­ing some­one through chemo is a pow­er­ful con­nec­tor.

Mer­cedes-Benz’s Face­book engage­ment is less about sell­ing cars and more about engag­ing around a lifestyle. Shar­ing cus­tomer sto­ries about “cruis­ing the Pacif­ic Coast High­way” immers­es fans in a lifestyle inclu­sive of their beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed cars through events, images, and their life­long engaged cus­tomers.

Mer­cedes-Benz fre­quent­ly shares cus­tomer sto­ries, turn­ing cus­tomers into sto­ry­tellers. Since 2013 a cou­ple has cov­ered more than 30,000km with some excit­ing chal­lenges in their Mer­cedes-Benz, like pass­ing through the Indi­an Himalayas. Fans can fol­low their jour­ney here.

Sam­sung Mobile’s Face­book Page focus­es not on their prod­ucts, but how real peo­ple use their prod­ucts. Shar­ing the many ways peo­ple use their fea­tures to take bet­ter self­ies gets Sam­sung great engage­ment and edu­cates users on new prod­uct inno­va­tion.

When mar­keters focus less on the quan­ti­ty and more on qual­i­ty it allows for bet­ter, more focused sto­ry­telling because we’re not try­ing to “boil the ocean” and reach every­one. We’re try­ing to reach our loy­al­ists.

2. It’s Easier To Leverage Partnerships

Red Bull owns cre­at­ing part­ner­ship to grow their brand fanat­ics, whether that’s with sports teams or car brands like Volk­swa­gen and Mer­cedez-Benz. They know their audi­ence psy­cho­graph­ics, find oth­er brands who engage that audi­ence and part­ner to pro­mote their sto­ries and engage fans.

Star­bucks Love Sto­ries by Match shares sto­ries of how peo­ple had their first date at the cof­fee shop. This part­ner­ship com­bines the beau­ty of love sto­ries and hope with a cup of cof­fee, illus­trat­ing brand val­ue for both Match.com and Star­bucks.

Nur­tur­ing part­ner­ships for the goal of pleas­ing cus­tomers and adding val­ue is eas­i­er when we’re focused on the val­ue we bring rather than the num­bers we hope they’ll bring.

3. It Helps Focus On Caring

Andrew Stan­ton, great sto­ry­teller and film­mak­er, says that sto­ry­telling and engage­ment is about “mak­ing them care.” Star­bucks’ mis­sion “Inspir­ing and nur­tur­ing the human spir­it – one per­son, one cup, and one neigh­bor­hood at a time” is evi­denced by its engage­ment strate­gies with fans.

In their #howwemet por­trait series, Star­bucks gives cus­tomers a chance to share how they meet and cre­ate engage­ment in their lives through cof­fee and Star­bucks loca­tions. Hash­tags com­bined with cus­tomer sto­ry­telling is the per­fect car­ing and shar­ing com­bi­na­tion.

If “mak­ing them care” is the key to great sto­ry­telling, mar­keters have a bet­ter chance of tru­ly inspir­ing care from a small­er engaged fan base than a larg­er, mild­ly inter­est­ed base.

4. It Drives Better Cross-Channel Integration And Business Analysis

Email will be just as impor­tant to engag­ing with and grow­ing your audi­ence on Face­book as the social plat­form itself. Heed­ing the “con­tent strat­e­gy first, chan­nel sec­ond” axiom helps mar­keters see build­ing a Face­book audi­ence as build­ing a brand audi­ence that adheres to brand strat­e­gy. Cleve­land Clin­ic beau­ti­ful­ly con­nects Face­book fans to the con­tent they own on their site and fol­low through with con­nect­ing read­ers to rel­e­vant con­tent deep­er in the fun­nel with email.

Van­i­ty met­rics like fan count does­n’t mat­ter as much as the met­rics around ded­i­cat­ed fans that read, engage with and share brand sto­ries. These more impor­tant Face­book Fan met­rics should live in the ana­lyt­ics dash­board, not in siloed report­ing.

Organ­ic reach on Face­book is dwin­dling and pay­ing to find and engage fans will only get more cost­ly. Focus­ing less on quan­ti­ty and more on qual­i­ty will assure that your paid social media spends get long-term engage­ment rather than pass­ing endorse­ment.

Takeaways

Some­times less is more. Cre­at­ing Face­book fan cam­paigns that have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be high­ly engag­ing for a small­er num­ber of fans is a great way to build an audi­ence that stays con­nect­ed and con­sid­er them­selves as part of a tribe. Build­ing rela­tion­ships and grow­ing a fan base is a long-term com­mit­ment with the pow­er to build loy­al­ty.

Ana­lyz­ing how Face­book reach and engage­ment impacts your brand and test­ing are the best ways to help you define your Face­book strat­e­gy. There aren’t hard and fast rules. As Face­book engage­ment con­tin­ues to get more expen­sive it’s more impor­tant than ever for mar­keters to know the answer to this ques­tion.