I was reading a post from Jon Loomer today “14 steps to success on FB” in which he finked about a report which Forrester Research has published this October “Why Facebook is Failing Marketers” Its a paid report manifesting that Facebook advertising and marketing is ineffective. Later today when I was browsing through my FB timeline I saw one sponsored post with healthy likes comments and shares “So I began analyzing weather the post is generating some ROI for the company?” Read On and see…

How brands like Zansaar are botching up Facebook Marketing Efforts

Zansaar is a online eCommerce store offering an exclusive range of highly functional and stylish home products ranging from Furniture, Décor to Kitchen and Dining essentials. Brand is highly active on facebook and with approx 2.2 Lakh fan base and is aggressively using FB like and Sponsored Newsfeed ads. I normally see one of its sponsored post giggling at my timeline every now and then.

Today I saw a post with approx 1549 Likes , 107 Shares and 39 comments. I began wondering that if a post is getting such high involvement then it should be driving some sales for the store, anyways I cannot get the sales data but yes I can analyze the post via engagement statistics.

On paying a little attention I could see first comment came on 29th of Oct and today is 11th of Nov so campaign is live from atleast past 14 days, may be campaign targeted festive season pre and post Diwali.

Now I will discommode you for few seconds, just go through all the comments which I have pointed out in the below snapshot, I took few hrs ago and after that we both will do the skinning exercise of this particular sponsored news-feed ad.

When I expanded the comments section I saw a blurb of one unsatisfied customer Dr Pankaj posted on Nov 2 i.e. 9 days back and irony is it received 2 likes with one -ve reply supporting the initial endorsement “Customer was delayed for a month for his order, which was subsequently cancelled” … again irony is customers are using same sponsored post to viral their dissatisfaction which is supposed to expatiate the sales and Store is doing nothing about it.

Further following the comments we can see another disgruntled customer complaining about delay in shipment and promoting Zansaar’s competitors Fabfurnish and Flipkart

3rd acknowledges the complaint registered by Dr Pankaj and takes it as a feedback (negativity is flowing vividly in comment trail)

4th Gives an open feedback that store product prices are barging the fence

5th Gives a hopeless rating to the store and claims a very bad shopping experience (via mobile)

and the last but not the least Srinivasan says “They have pathetic customer service & logistics … factory is just 3 kms from his place and store took 25 days to deliver” …. with a long story of perturbs faced by the customer. Finally warning others not to buy from Zansaar

 … Yes am smiling because I am witnessing a real stupidity here.

Chicks are killing Hens … customers are using the same platform to stain the brand equity of the store which was meant to increase it.

Will FB marketing in above case will yield +ve ROI? I think not.

Ask yourself is Facebook Marketing Culprit in this case, is Facebook not delivering ROI, is it repleted by spammers?

The story above has to do nothing with Facebook or say with any social media platform, problem lies within the roots i.e. basic requirements of the eCommerce store.

1. Supply Chain Management

2. Customer Service

3. CRM (customer relationship Management)

4. ORM (online reputation Management)

Advertising comes last, first you need to have awesome product , Second amazing customer service and then last is darting marketing, if a company lacks in first 2, 3rd is likely to crumple.

Facebook on the other hand is providing an amazing platform where store is getting live reviews and complaints through which company can immediately identify the ills and rectify it promptly.

By this Sponsored post analysis we can easily identify that in Zansaar’s case Social Media Monitoring is null as the result brand is suffering negative Social Proof. This FB campaign will not boost sales rather it will effectuate companies current sales negatively.

SMM team of the company should at-least acknowledge the complaints and give appropriate replies and should escalate the matter to customer grievance cell.

So Jon Loomer is right, even big brands and marketing jargon’s at times make feeble mistakes, that severely dampens their Social Media Marketing efforts.

* If your Social Media Optimization team is not up-to the quality you cannot blame Facebook for not driving sales, real people in real life are online on FB, providing you real comments and reviews, If you cannot handle customer service you are likely to crumple in no time. No Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or for that matter any online marketing platform gonna help you out.