Brands Driving Traffic to Facebook

Over the weekend, I received my first magazine from NYLON. This magazine came to me as a promotional offer when purchasing clothes from Forever21’s website. The magazine includes content about fashion, music and makeup. I am curious about their conversion from free to paid subscriptions through this medium. I’ll research this topic later.

In the mean time, while browsing the zine I noticed something trending with the majority of advertisers. Each brand is pushing traffic to their Facebook fan pages and not to their URL.

Why are they doing this? It is times like this I wish I could contact an advertising mogul or an old professor to understand the strategy behind this method.

However, I do recognize these brands are looking to promote their Facebook pages in order to gain followers instead of driving traffic to their main website or specified microsite.

I am not saying this is a bad or wrong method. I just want to understand the strategy. When promoting an ecommerce website, how much engagement does it take to turn one user into a transaction?

I am about conversion rates—working or not? It reminds me of a conversation that I recently had with my sister. We were discussing how she handles the customers on the initial call. She was going into too much on the phone without getting to the point—the appointment. Obviously, customer service is extremely important, but if they aren’t asking questions just book the appointment (ask for the order!) Save the small talk when they are in-person developing a relationship.

I used the example of people who call New Yorkers rude. I say they are not rude, but just right to the point.  When ordering a pizza, its whats your order skipping all the small talk.  Even when walking in and out of the subways, they are always in a hurry. It’s about going directly to their destination no matter whom one knocks down or pass dirty looks to on the way.

So back to the Facebook referrals, instead of driving fans or followers all around the Internet, why not send them directly to your website? Let them go to the social media sites from there. At least you know where they came from, how long they sat on your site and what they clicked-through while navigating.

With Facebook’s recent transition going public, who knows where the company really is going to go? This advertising is driving traffic to a rented space on the Internet, which will never truly be owned by them. Please tell me that I do not understand the full potential of this method or am I just being closed minded about branding.