How to Benefit from the Psychology Behind Facebook Brand Following

Today’s post is by Craig Robinson of Qwaya.com.  Here’s Craig…

The odds are great that you have certain preferences when it comes to purchasing products. Let’s say that you’re walking through the grocery store aisle and you really have a hankering for some chips. Now, if you’re a Doritos fan, you’re probably going to choose a bag of Doritos over a bag of competitor’s tortilla chips. And it’s not that they might not taste as good, or that they’re more expensive, etc. It’s because, psychologically, you are more familiar with the Doritos.

Now relate this to Facebook and people following brands. Someone seeing you and your competitor is thinking the same thing you might think about those chips in the above hypothetical. If they feel comfortable with your competitor, they’re going to go with your competitor – unless, of course, you can entice them away.

A more colorful ad; a two-for-one special – you can think of different ways to break the psychology involved in brand following. However, you first have to understand the psychology behind it all.

The Communications Model

The communications model plays a great deal in how users receive ad material and thus react to it. The communications model is broken down into five parts:

– Sender

– Receiver

– Medium

– Filter

– Feedback

Now, to go through these quickly, the sender is the ad, whereas you are the receiver. The medium is the means by which you’re receiving the ad, e.g., on a Facebook page. The filter is your brain and how you process and ultimately remember this ad; and last but certainly not least; the feedback in this model is how you react, e.g., liking an ad or purchasing a product.

Why do people follow brands?

With the communications model explained, let’s touch briefly on the actual psychology of the issues here. For starters, you have the position of the brand and how what you’re attempting to sell matches a want and a need of the consumer. If you play to a user’s senses and their desires, you can get them to try your brand. But since Facebook users are seeing a wide variety of unique and colorful Facebook ads every single day, the communications model is too ad-heavy and thus there’s some sensory overload going on.

That brings us to how brand loyalty is developed in this modern age, especially on Facebook. It simply feels more comfortable for a user to check out the same brand instead of trying their luck with a new brand. They don’t know what that new brain entails. Their attention span will not give credence to anything new, in part because they’re also able to associate themselves with the brands to which they’re loyal.

Focusing on a consumer’s needs and desires and always being colorful and creative in your advertising can build brand loyalty, but you also have to remember that it’s going to take a big nudge to get users away from other brands. This is something you’re going to have to work out if you’re hoping to attract new customers.

Don’t be the only “sender”

When you advertise on Facebook in a traditional manner (if something only a few years old can be called traditional) you – and only you – are speaking to your audience, the receiver. There’s an ad on the right-hand side of the feed and you have that ad space to convince the Facebook visitor “you’re better than Doritos.”

Breaking through and creating a connection with your customer can be tough, especially if your brand, product or site is fairly unknown. It’s simply hard to stand out in the right-hand buzz.

However, if you already have a following, even if it’s small, it’s possible to use these real people to advertise for you. Instead of creating classic marketplace ads you should try sponsored stories where your fans’ actions become the ads. When someone checks in, likes, comments, tags, etc., this becomes an ad and instantly you’re not the only sender, which changes the nature of the entire communication model above.

You’re ad now becomes more of a recommendation. And think about it. Who do you trust most: a friend or a business you don’t know anything about?

– Craig Robinson, is an Editor at Qwaya.com. Qwaya provides marketers with a self-serviced ad manager tool for Facebook campaigns.