So, I’m not sure if you heard…not like you could miss it, but 2 things happened in the last 7 days:

1. GM announced it was no longer going to advertise on Facebook. They aren’t pulling out of Facebook. They will still spend nearly $30M with agencies and partners to create compelling content and experiences for Facebook. But, the $10M a year they spend on paid advertising is no more.

2. Facebook’s IPO finally launched on NASDAQ, but didn’t impress on the opening day and has dropped more than 11% since. I’m not a day trader, night trader or afternoon trader. I can’t pretend to speak about fair IPO pricing, Wall Street Expectations or market caps. But, I can say that I think Facebook’s lagging performance is about more than the over mentioned inability to understand mobile.

Here’s the thing, as Rishad famously once stated, the future cannot be held by the containers of the past. There’s so much truth in that statement. You can’t treat today’s consumer like the consumer from 5 year’s ago, let alone, 20 years ago. You can’t keep trying to make social media your FSI or treating it like radio, print or TV. Heck, you can’t even treat it like digital marketing from 10 years ago. I think the team at Ford really nailed it, when in response to GM’s announcement, they tweeted:

It’s all about the execution. Our Facebook ads are effective when strategically combined with engaging content & innovation.

— Ford Motor Company (@Ford) May 15, 2012

They are 100% correct. Their sentiment isn’t just about Facebook though…it’s about all marketing today. We want great content as consumers. That content manifests itself in commercials (have you seen the Google Chrome ads?), videos (you know, like the Coke Happiness Machine ones), tweet, pins, status updates, print ads (ever watch someone flip through Vogue or Real Simple) and so much more.

The wise marketer today…not just the digital marketer…the wise MARKETER…asks themselves, how can I create content that people can’t wait to consume and then share. And that to me, is engagement at a high-level. You can certainly measure engagement. We do at Campbell Soup and we did at Walgreens. You can create a formula for it and you should. But, you can’t just look at the 1s and 0s. You need to balance the algebra with the conceptual stuff. It’s art and science; not one or the other.

Up until today, I had no idea who Jonathan Salem Baskin was. But, after reading his GREAT article on AdAge titled, “There’s a Message to Marketers in Facebook’s IPO Slide” and more importantly, subtitled, We Must Rethink the Value to Brands of Engagement in Social Media; he’s on my list of people to connect with in real life. The entire article is great and I encourage you to read it. The one salient key nugget that’s so eloquently written and spot on was this:

Facebook’s sole function is engagement. It connects people with one another. Its $3 billion in revenue and $1 billion profit come from advertisers who believe that there must be ways for brands to profit from that engagement. They don’t know how to do it yet. The two hypotheses they’re testing are putting ads around it, and trying to actually host some of it via branded pages interspersed with people pages. There’s no evidence that either yields much beyond nice-to-have benefit, and some experimenters (most recently GM) have given up trying, for now. Again, since Facebook makes money either way, I’d take a small piece of such failure and consider my life’s work a success.

Like Rishad says, the future, or in this case, the PRESENT cannot be held by the containers of the past. If you treat TV like an FSI you won’t be happy with the results. And if you treat Facebook like direct mail, you’re really going to be disappointed. Engagement is a problem, because it’s unpredictable and we have a tough time, as marketers, being comfortable with things that aren’t predictable. We love the FSI, because we know with X circulation and offer of Y, we’ll see Z performance. We love things like TV, because even though TV has dramatically changed in the last 5, 10, 20 and 30 years, our marketing mix models that are based on historical data give us a way to predict success.

Ultimately, it’s our inability to be comfortable with ambiguity makes it so tough for us to accept that engagement is important. Remember this, you can’t have a sale without engagement. Even a direct response transaction…requires engagement. Don’t get mad at Facebook for selling engagement. Get mad at yourself for not putting some rigor around engagement…for not adding some science to the art and for having the wrong expectations for what Facebook can do for your business.

Engagement, remains a big buzzword.  Brand managers, agencies, pundits, columnists, and the rest of the marketing community want people/consumers to engage with their brand, site, or product.  I’ve even used the term.  Heck, I’ve put it into creative briefs and dammit if I don’t feel guilty for doing it right now.  The problem is that engagement doesn’t really mean anything.  It’s nebulous, lacks definition, and rarely can be tied back to sales.  To be fair, this is not the case for every brand or situation.  There are specific instances where engagement is the goal.  It’s rare, but it does happen.

If you’ve been to a shopping mall in the United States, you’re probably familiar with Brookstone and The Sharper Image.  If not, let me jog your memory with a photo of a Brookstone:

Brookstone

I’d show you a photo of The Sharper Image too, but seeing as they filed for bankruptcy and are now a mail order business only, I didn’t think it made a lot sense.  Although, oddly enough their business failure will help substantiate by belief that engagement is an irrelevant objective.

The image you see above is what every Brookstone in America looks like.  There are a bunch of people standing just outside the store debating if they should walk in.  Inside are people trying out the vibrating massage chairs, 100s of iPod/Music devices, and playing with other strange “cutting edge” devices.

I’ve been going to malls for over 20 years.  Let’s say in a given year, I go to a mall once a month.  That’s 12 times a year for 20 years, for a total of 240 visits.  I’m sure I’ve been in them way more than 240 times, but these round numbers work.  Also, let’s assume each visit runs 5 minutes.  That means I’ve spent 1200 minutes or 20 hours with the Brookstone brand in the last 20 years.  Do you know how many things I’ve bought from Brookstone and The Sharper Image in those ears?  0.  Yes, that zero.  Nothing.  Nadda.  They haven’t gotten 1 penny from me.

Think about that?  Forget about me, rarely in my 5 minutes visits have I seen anyone actually purchase anything.  Sure, I see a lot of engagement happening.  People are walking into the store, trying out products, and spending a lot of time immersed in the Brookstone brand experience.  So, they’re engaging, but not buying.  Kinda takes the wind out of the sales of engagement.  If engagement can’t be tied to a specific desired interaction (usually a sale), it’s an irrelevant objective.

Stop focusing on engagement.  Start focusing on conversions.  You’re clients will thank you and you’ll be a hell of a lot happier.