BRATTLEBORO — It's the day the music died for one-trick marketers.
Facebook - the publicly traded company with a net worth greater than McDonald's and several other multinational corporations combined - has switched up its sharing algorithm, much to the chagrin of the self-appointed marketers of the status quo.
Facebook went pay-to-play for brands, and to some, that equates to selling out. Facebook isn't cool anymore.
They had a good run - marketers reliant on a one-dimensional marketing strategy, that is. For them, it's over. Facebook, however, is here to stay - cool or not.
Eat24, the (hilarious) food delivery site that the world doesn't need and that you never heard of, has successfully translated the zeitgeist of popular opinion into a smarmy guerrilla marketing publicity stunt that has amassed them tons of Likes and Followers.
Evidently, the entire world needs to know that they're pivoting from Facebook marketing to Twitter and Instagram marketing, and - oh, yes - there's a political reason for the move. It's not enough for Eat24 to go quietly into the night; they have to stage a protest on their declared enemy's platform, too.
If we're to take their public announcement at face value, to brands like Eat24, it's Facebook's responsibility to share Eat24's content to Eat24's followers for free, into perpetuity. It's somehow someone else's obligation to pay for it.
I'm sorry, but that's more outrageous than Facebook changing their algorithm.
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In reality, Eat24 is smart enough to leverage this one-time algorithmic change to the company's one-time business advantage. It's a brilliant publicity stunt playing on cheap public sentiment.
It isn't about the fact that Eat24 is so outraged - they're not - it's that “we” are so outraged that we could personally invest so much into a company (Facebook) that could then commodify our content without asking for up-to-the-minute express consent to rearrange our access to it.
It's clever to capitalize on fake public outrage, but it's not a substitute for a meaningful long-term strategy.
Eat24 will return to Facebook. If my brother is any indicator, you can always deactivate your Facebook account, then reactivate later and not lose a speck of data. Or, perhaps, Eat24 was planning on focusing on Twitter and Instagram anyway and just used this moment to its advantage.
“Not to hit below the belt, but we have a lot more fun when we hang out with Twitter and Instagram,“ writes Eat24, omitting the obvious fact that Instagram is owned by Facebook.
The truth is, Facebook has always owned you and your marketing materials, and they have always had every and any right to change the rules of the game. It's their game. You're just playing. So try not to take it so personally.
The truth is, if you're completely dependent on Facebook marketing for your business, then your business isn't remarkable and your marketing efforts are certainly just as lame.
Marketing should never be remotely one-dimensional. Your website should be at the center of your marketing efforts, not someone else's!
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The truth is, your relationship to your customers can't be so cheap. The mass market doesn't exist anymore, so as marketers and business owners, we need to work that much harder to understand smaller segments of the population and communicate to them across multiple, appropriate channels specific to mutual needs.
Eat24 was smart enough to realize a huge advertising/marketing opportunity on porn websites and was shameless about exploiting their service across those channels.
Even though I don't sympathize with the assumptions that Eat24's recent PR stunt capitalizes upon, I have to respect a company that's so brave in its marketing that it takes such big chances (and pulls them off). In the case of Eat24 versus Facebook, it's Marketing 101: Pick a Fight.
The fact is, many marketers have been feeding at the Facebook trough for too long.
It's lazy to depend on one channel when there are so many ways to more effectively engage people in a more substantive way than a casual Like or comment.
The question these marketers cannot answer, lest they put themselves out of a job, is: How little marketing can be done to sell the product or service of a business?
Being remarkable is the best form of marketing, period. Remarkable products tell remarkable stories, which sell remarkable products.
What was the last good story you read on Facebook? If it's Eat24's story, guess what ... they played your emotions, and they won. Well done, Eat24.