Arabstarts

Our Love-hate Affair & Why GM Broke Up with Facebook

 

I started booking Facebook ads for our Qatar based media agency in 2007, not because we were forward thinking about social media, but because we used every tool at our disposal to spread our social initiatives and ideas. Sure we were early adopters, but the Middle East demands the “latest fashion” so you have to try everything new as soon as it’s available. No hero biscuits for brilliance deserved.

We were early adopters of new ways to reach our community and especially affordable ones.  Facebook ads were dirt cheap in 2007 and our measured results soared over Yahoo and Google.

In mid May 2012, on the eve of the Facebook IPO, GM announced that it’s pulling a 10 million dollar ad campaign with Facebook.  So what’s the problem? Why did their ads not work? Is Facebook’s success overcrowding and diluting its effectiveness? Is a lack of “niche” targeting catching up with Facebook? Is it just too all over the place? Was GM’s messaging and social media strategy simply wrong? How would a $10 mil campaign with Linked In compare?

I’m personally no longer receptive to commercial banner ads on Facebook. Apart from the negative, sick in the gut of my stomach feeling I get when “friends” try to sell me on Facebook, I also am not receptive to being “sold” by the big brands. The nature of the ads being all over the place doesn’t help. Why would I be interested in knowing my friends “liked” the Canadian Tire page? What is the GM image impact of their ad being placed beside a chemically drenched junk food ad? In fairness my only recent recall of Facebook ads are the Canadian Tire and VISA "like" ads (because they annoyed me) and a welcomed, enlightened Kickstarter ad for Amanda Palmer's Indie album launch.

What is your experience and frame of mind when you are on Facebook? I am of mixed minds; annoyed that I can’t figure out how to eliminate the endless, bothersome, presumably mindless game invitations, perturbed at some of the privacy trickery that led to decent people’s peeking at trashy articles being publicized unknowingly, sympathetic toward the people who keep posting sad and sage advice images, and frantically ecstatic to absorb all the “speed of web” latest news in entrepreneurship, tech, social media, humanity and art from my favourites like TED, Venturebeat, Fastcompany, techvibes, techcrunch, mashable, and wamda….

Yes Facebook is predominantly my RSS feed and when my mind is extrapolating that wonderfully mind blowing next wondrous innovative idea, I don’t want to be interrupted by ads about yesteryear, planet polluting, cash eating products or energy busting junk food, or even news about green smoothies workshops where I will be sold a life changing diet and exercise experience so I can resemble all those pictures my “friend” posted of herself.

Listen up GM. What I would be interested in seeing in a Facebook campaign would be a link to a docu series highlighting how the GM Foundation or partners are making the world a better, more humane, less hungry, less sick and poor, more enlightened, healthier, cleaner and greener place. That would get my attention and, if delivered properly, could engage me enough to “follow” and eventually maybe even take interest in their latest products.

That’s just me, but if GM looks further at the social trends, I think they will see I am not alone.