Glenn Fogel of Priceline called those selling the idea of social media to the hotel industry as “charlatans” at the No Vacancy Conference in Sydney this week.
He may be right – and he may also have one company agreeing with him already, after a Facebook promotion for Wotif did not go exactly to plan.
The Asia-Pacific OTA opened the floodgates when they recently announced an 11th birthday sale that sold rooms at AUS$11 for 11 minutes, accessible via a link on its Facebook page.
In theory, this looked like a great idea, but what is believed to be a combination of limited stock and technical issues seemed to put a damper on the birthday celebrations – with the backlash almost immediate.
Inevitably, Wotif’s Facebook fans immediately took to the fan page’s wall to vent their frustrations about the problems they experienced when trying to get the cheap deals, many saying they were “unliking” the OTA and urging others to do so as well.
Essentially, Wotif stacked the deck against itself by setting perhaps rather unachievable expectations, a problem as many of the new fans were clearly only looking for freebies.
Having this many opportunists already on board, it would be safe to assume that a large portion would enter the subsequent promotions, potentially leading to the technical issues that many experienced.
But Wotif has taught us a very important lesson: not all likes are created equal.
Having plenty of likes may make a Facebook page appear more enticing to new users, but acquiring them can clearly be a dangerous game, especially when things go wrong.
Indeed, such was the furore that competitor HotelClub even got in a very subtle dig via its own Facebook page:
There is a potential darker side to this tale, illustrating that Facebook isn’t always watching as close as some people think they it.
For those keeping score, the Wotif Facebook page gained almost 35,000 likes in about two weeks (Or around 2,500 per day). These kinds of numbers are almost unheard of with a corporate page, even with heavy advertising.
The bulk of these new likes came from a promotion that seemed to stray in to a grey area where Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines are concerned.
Wotif offered all new fans the chance to win three nights free accommodation just for liking the page, (aka like-bait) which is a bit of a no-no.
According to Facebook:
- You cannot: Â Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by liking your Page, checking in to your Place or connecting to your Platform integration.
- You can: Require entrants to like your Page, check in to your Place or connect to your Platform integration before they provide their full entry information, such as name and contact information.”
In other words, you need to use a third party app, as Facebook will have no part in the technical side of a promotion. This is undoubtedly to reduce the legal risk associated with contests, as noted in their lengthily disclaimer, (also absent from the Wotif page):
Also, companies must include the following disclosures:
- Adjacent to any promotion entry field: ‘This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for [disclose any way that you plan to use the user's information].’
- In the promotion’s rules:
- A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.
- Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
Wotif has not responded to requests for comment around issues regarding the competition and the Facebook promotion regulations.
About Special Nodes
What a great lesson for all. Reckon others will be more careful in going forward with these types of promotions in the social media channels.
Once Bitten Twice Shy..
Thanks for sharing,
J
How was this campaign in any way a failure for Wotif? They have achieved a net gain of 35,000 followers for almost no cost. Wotif are now ‘in their face’ via the Facebook news feed 24/7. Facebook legal issues notwithstanding, I hardly see how this was a failure except in the eyes of the bogans demanding a freebie and throwing a tantrum because they missed out.
I think that depends what the goal of your Facebook page is. If it’s simply to have as many likes as possible, then yes this was extremely successful, probably one of the best promotions I have seen in a while. Anything past pure like numbers though, I’m not too sure what the purpose was and what kind of returns this will have.
Do these really fans actually like the brand or are they opportunistic deal hunters that would sign up to any page that mentioned the chance of a free/cheap deal? I would argue that the genuine fan of brand is worth MUCH more.
Usually, the CPA for a Facebook like via Facebook ads is about 1-3 dollars. Some people have gotten down to 15 – 50 cents, but usually they’re highly recognized brands or are using ads in conjunction with a promo. Keeping fans on-board who actually like your brand for what it is will be much easier and more sustainable than those who need to be strung along with constant freebies and give-aways. But really, it’s a lot easier for an agency/pr to sell the idea of thousands of likes in a short period of time for very little money vs. spending more for fewer, better quality fans.
I guess we will see if this pays off in the long run. Facebook marketing like this is a relatively new discipline, maybe brands that have the money to hand out prizes every week can afford to keep this up forever. Maybe not.
Agree completely. An active fan base is more valuable than numbers. The goal with social media should actually be to take into account the “social” side of it and not just look at it as another database. Without actually engaging all the people they’ve now added to Facebook or having quality users, then it’s not much use to them and their strategy is very weak, as seen with the lack of responses that were given to people that were posting on their wall. My 2 cents.
Hardly seems a “grey” area as noted above. According to the guidelines (also quoted above):
“You cannot: Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by liking your Page, checking in to your Place or connecting to your Platform integration.”
With Wotif’s promotion, you are automatically entered by liking the page. That’s not grey in any way. It’s completely against the promotion TOS as set by Facebook. Hardly seems fair for other brands to stick by the TOS if some like Wotif flaunt them.
FYI, they’ve just broken ANOTHER rule in the facebook promotion guidelines, and contacted the winner directly through facebook. See this post here: http://www.facebook.com/wotif/posts/154904964568822
It doesn’t seem like Facebook is looking out for these kinds of violations at all. It’s very hard to compete against something like this, I definitely agree with you on that.
Have you ever seen anyone get punished for this? They say the page gets taken away, but I haven’t heard of it happening.
Great points brought up Graham!
I wonder what Wotif’s intentions were then… Maybe, just maybe, they were aware that this was going to backfire? Any PR is better than no PR right?
kidding!
well if they were using a get-fans-quick tactic then, it certainly backfired and the negative PR is definitely not doing anything for them especially with their existing customers. As Graham mentioned, a genuine fan is worth a lot!
not to mention they broke the rules..