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How Much is a Friend Worth? : 15c

Interesting article “Friends for Sale” in the Economist this week touching on Social Commerce (archived below).

The article leads with headline that Dell has generated $3m in sales from micro-blogging platform Twitter – tweeting about it’s refurbished PC outlet.

The Economist then turns to a faux shock-horror exposé of uSocial, the Australian web marketing agency that sells “Friends” and “Fans” on Facebook to brands looking to boost their campaign statistics. If you are a brand you can buy a Facebook fan @ 15c from uSocial, allowing you to demonstrate what a super campaign you’ve run in your balanced scorecard review. uSocial can also help by buying you votes on Social News sites to drive campaign traffic, and even buy you followers on Twitter… So what, dear uSocial, is a retweet worth these days?

Kudos to uSocial I say – great niche in the market – playing on marketers institutionalized fixation with campaign reach statistics online. And as long as reach is the (mis)measure of success in social media campaigns uSocial have a money printing window of opportunity – sharing the winnings with other outfits such as SubvertandProfit.com

Can’t help but think though that if uSocial combine their rent-a-crowd offer with social commerce through an affiliate scheme based on e-commerce sales. Do that – say by teaming up with, or taking a leaf out of e-junkie – and my view is they will strike gold.

Is Payment by Results Social Media Marketing around the corner?

Marketing on social networks

Friends for sale

Sep 17th 2009 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

What is a Facebook friend worth?

ONLINE social networks are handy not just as a means of wasting time but also as a communications tool for business. Dell, a computer-maker, has made $3m in sales from Twitter since it started “tweeting” about its outlet that sells refurbished computers in 2007. Marketers are eager to use fast-growing networks to tout their products. An Australian online-marketing company, uSocial, wants to help them—for a price. On September 16th the firm started selling Facebook friends and fans.

After trawling Facebook for users by criteria like age, location and interests, uSocial then recommends potential friends to companies, who approach them directly. A firm pays $727 for each 5,000 users who agree to be its friend, or 15 cents each. “Fans”, who merely express support for a firm, are cheaper.

It is not the first time uSocial has tried to sell the benefits of popular online destinations to marketers. It sells votes on websites such as Digg, which let people share content and vote on which articles should appear on the site’s front page. It also sells Twitter “followers” (people who follow a user’s updates) to companies looking for some positive buzz. Those websites disapprove. So does Facebook, which may try to bar uSocial from its service.

Social networks provide “the most powerful form of advertising there is”, claims Leon Hill, uSocial’s boss. But not everyone thinks uSocial’s idea of selling friends makes for good marketing. Andrew Petersen of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina reckons that purchasing friends or fans does not establish brand loyalty and may actually hurt a firm’s image by making it seem desperate.

Websites like Twitter and Facebook might lose some of their popularity if users feel they have become a forum for advertising rather than gossip. It is also in their interest to make sure uSocial does not claim profits that could be theirs. Facebook, which said on September 15th that it has 300m users, has struggled to make money from them. It recently launched a type of advertising that allows companies to target potential customers by letting users click on an advert to become that company’s fan. The new offering from uSocial competes directly with this revenue source. No wonder uSocial does not have many friends of its own.

Written by
Dr Paul Marsden
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Digital wellbeing covers the latest scientific research on the impact of digital technology on human wellbeing. Curated by psychologist Dr. Paul Marsden (@marsattacks). Sponsored by WPP agency SYZYGY.