Are you a Fan of Oreo?

Nom Nom

Facebook Fan Pages are the newest installment of The Social Network as it tries to constantly reinvent itself. As I learned in my Social Media class, typically businesses set up a Fan Page because of the following reasons:

1. There is no limit to the number of Fans you can have – Profiles are limited to 5,000 "friends".
2. You can email all your Fans at once –Profiles are limited to sending 20 emails at a time.
3. Fan Pages automatically accept Fan requests – Profiles require you to manually accept requests.
4. Fan Pages have more customization options.

One Facebook Fan Page that has received a lot of attention is Oreo, as they recently tried to win a Guinness World Records entry for most Facebook likes. Sure, shortly after their record was broken by Lil Wayne, but it sure gained a lot of attention. 

Photo courtesy of KRAFT FOODS INC.

 "Oreo Man" receiving Guinness World Records mark for "Most Likes on a Facebook Post In 24 Hours".

Oreo is the #4 rated global brand on Facebook, as I pointed out in this post. So why does an American cookie company, once criticized for having a high amount of Trans Fats, as you can read about in this blog post, have so many fans on Facebook? For cookies that are basically nothing more than sugary Crisco (that’s right, no butter, milk or vanilla) how could they get to 17,427,180 fans, as of March 22, 2011?

Photo from AlmightyDad.com

Well Oreo is doing a lot of things right on their Facebook page. For example,  

1.       Obviously they got the name right, step #1, so they are easy to find via search. If that wasn’t enough, on the homepage of the Oreo website there are also links to their Facebook (and Twitter) pages. A great way of integrating across platforms.

2.       They customized their landing page so they engage visitors immediately with a customized message: “Oreo & milk moments are best when SHARED”, which encourages fans to upload a photo of themselves sharing Oreo cookies. Right now it’s a cute picture of a boy and girl (almost) sharing an Oreo cookie, in a “Lady and the Tramp” spaghetti dinner type moment. Cute. They also continue their brand’s theme colours (blue, white) throughout the page.

3.       Besides the Shared moments, they also are promoting User Generated Content (UGC) through their Oreo “World’s Fan of the Week” contest. Fans can submit photos of themselves to the Facebook Fan page and each week Oreo will chose one photo to highlight on their Fan Page’s side bar. This week it’s Abby A. from California. I don’t think they win anything, but they do get “world” recognition and this seems to be enough to encourage a lot of submissions from fans. It also means there are tons of pictures of people enjoying their sugary Crisco yummy Oreo cookies on Oreo’s Facebook page – great PR!

4.       Oreo obviously updates their content frequently, and beside the weekly fan contest, they post a new “Status Update” on their Wall about every day two. I already talked about how they asked fans to ‘Like’ their status, but they also pose questions to their fans, (eg. Oreo: “What is your favorite part of an Oreo - the cookie or the creme?”) post recipes (eg. Oreo: “Your sweetheart would love an Oreo treat”…Oreo Sweetheart Strawberry Tarts Recipe) and share information about current promotions (eg. GEAR UP with OREO! Enter the unique PIN code found in your specially marked OREO package and you could win a brand new set of hockey equipment! Kraft | Canada Assists IWG). So not only are they marketing their brand, they are making sure their content shows up in fan’s News Feeds – another great way to encourage more responses from fans.

5.       Right now Oreo is also providing unique, Facebook only content through their crazy ass “Double Stuf Racing League” game, (DSRL) which is promoting their new(?) cookie, Double Stuf (half chocolate, half vanilla). I think it is basically like a cookie eating contest, (“ready, set, lick!” its says on Race Rules for the Lick Race) and contestants: 1. Select their choice of 4 celebrities, 2. Upload a photo 3. Share it with others. I think you also need to “like” Oreo on Facebook, which I couldn’t quite bring myself to do. 

Maybe this video explains it better:

Anyways, I’m sure you could spend hours on there. All the better for engaging fans of Oreo and bringing in those marketing $$.

Of course, Oreo’s Fan page isn’t perfect (they are only #4!) and they could use some improvements in the following areas:

1.       One area where Starbucks (#2 global brand) has a leg up on Oreo is in the area of two-way communication. Scanning their post I mentioned above “What is your favorite part of an Oreo - the cookie or the creme?” there were over 9,794 comments, but I couldn’t find any actually from Oreo. They pretty much asked the question and stepped back. Starbucks seems to be doing better in this area, so I think they could improve this in the future.

2.       Ok, I can’t really think of anything else. Can you?

So overall, I can’t say I’m really a big fan of Oreos (unless it is a layer of a delicious DQ cake) but I really got sucked into their Facebook page, especially the whole DSRL thing. So I would definitely give Oreo’s Fan Page an A+. Check it out!