Content is a king, but imagination is power

As brands are no longer doubting the need to communicate through social networks, they are literally polluting all channels with their presence. Many are stealing already realized ideas, others are still afraid to go beyond traditional advertising model. Not these two examples of innovative use of Facebook fan pages.

Gilt Groupe Page Support & Sales Preview

The fashion retailer practices two-way engagement on its Facebook Page via a sophisticated “Support” tab where fans can ask questions and give feedback. The tab is closely monitored by Gilt’s customer service team, so users can expect to see timely and accurate responses to their queries. Using a different tab menu fans can ask a question, share an idea, report a problem or give a praise.

Another useful feature of the page is the early preview of Gilt’s flash sales, which begin every day at noon, via the “Preview” tab — a great way to drive sales and reward fans.

The page has more than 300,000 fans, well deserved.

Doug, the Ford Focus New Spokespuppet

My personal favorite. The marketing office of Ford pretty fast came to the conclusion that a cool fan page and couple of ads are not enough to stand out.

Obviously an open-minded team decided to create Dough,  an orange puppet, to publicize the company’s 2012 Focus. Doug is a social media animal — appearing only on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Everything related to the campaign is very much different of what you expect to see in a 30 seconds TV ad for example. The orange puppet has an edgy sense of humor and it’s very famous in YouTube with various funny videos that have been seen more than 498,000 times.

According to an article in Mashable there will be a few videos added every week during the next few months that follow a story arc which aim will be to reach people who doesn’t know a lot about Ford Focus. Ford has loaded a half-dozen videos on focusdoug’s channel so far, including a press conference introducing Doug!

And not only. The latest Doug’s catchy post is a Facebook contest where fans can use this image and put him in an original enough scenario. I will definitely keep an eye on future Doug’s performances.