What's Not to "Like?" Can a Facebook Fan Base Give a Brand the Advertising Reach it Needs?

A marketer with a Facebook Fan base has at least some ability to advertise to that audience. What quality of reach, however, does this sort of “earned media” deliver? The landmark discovery by Andrew Ehrenberg of the negative binomial distribution (NBD) implies that the most effective advertising requires media that reach across both heavy and light buyers of the brand.

What’s Not to “Like?” Can a Facebook Fan Base Give a Brand the Advertising Reach it Needs?

Karen Nelson-Field, Erica Riebe and Byron Sharp

Ehrenberg-Bass Institute

Management slant

  • The buying concentration of a brand's Facebook fan base is extremely different from that of a typical population of shoppers.
  • The Facebook fan base generates a non NBD-distributed population in that it is very skewed to heavy buyers.
  • Skewing heavy has big implications to marketers who want to use their Facebook fan base for brand growth strategies.
  • Advertising media that skew towards light buyers are particularly valuable –...

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