It was only a matter of time.
Proctor & Gamble Co. became a “fan” of Facebook. According to Advertising Age, P&G is looking to increase its social media presence and make Facebook a “big part of its marketing plan.”
This may not seem like news to some people, but the fact that P&G is just now “embracing” the social media movement is a shock to me. I have always considered P&G as one of the major players in consumer products. Their brands include beauty and health products like Pantene, Secret, Metamucil and Vicks, and household care items like Bounty, Swiffer, and Tide.
I personally use four of these products (although I never knew that P&G owned all of them). Still, these are largely advertised products, possibly used by millions of people, and I find it hard to believe that P&G did not invest more time, money, or research in social media until recently. We’re not talking about a mom and pop shop; we’re talking a company whose beauty products’ net sales were $26.3 billion in 2009. Maybe I just expected a corporate giant like P&G to be a front-runner in the online conversation. With an array of products and a marketing budget some business can only dream of, I expected P&G to be “with it.”
Make room in Silicon Valley because here comes P&G.
As of January 26, 2010 P&G has 8,705 “fans”on Facebook. That’s a nice size audience for online conversations. I was also impressed by the posts; lots of company and product praise by the fans.
As one fan stated:
I love all Procter & Gamble products and they are all over this house. I know that a few family members and friends have and had employment there. It must be a wonderful place to work, because they always talk about how it is such a wonderful company, and thinks very highly of there employees.
However, I was disappointed when I went to P&G’s Web site . Sure, there’s a link to all the RSS feeds you could subscribe to, but their Web site does not mention Facebook. I poked around searching for that familiar icon, but it’s nowhere to be found. I thought for sure it would be in the news and views bucket but it sure wasn’t there, not even in the “Stay in Touch” section. How are consumers supposed to know P&G is on Facebook? Yes, I know there is a search option in Facebook, but shouldn’t these tools be cross referenced wherever possible? Isn’t that a part of the marketing strategy? Shouldn’t the Facebook icon be right there with the Twitter logo? (Which by the way does not exist on their site either.)
Out of curiosity I checked two other Web sites of major consumer brands: Unilever and Johnson and Johnson. Nothing. No link to Facebook or Twitter. At least Unilever has a RSS feed in their media center.
What does this say to me? “Embracing” Facebook and social media is just the beginning. There’s a lot more that could be done.
