The Face-to-Face Book: Love it or leave it?

The Face-to-Face Book is not the kind of book you'd expect to read in a social media class. Authors Keller and Fay really stressed the power of offline word of mouth and discredited the effectiveness of social media marketing throughout much of the text. The book sparked more debates and conversation in our class than any other book we've read about social media; so for a few reasons, I can understand why The Face-to-Face Book made the reading list. A quote on the front of the book by Chuck Porter, chairman at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, reads: "Everyone who's on the social-media-is-the-future bandwagon should get off for a minute and read this book." I could not agree more. 

Why do you think Dr. Aggie assigned The Face-to-Face Book?

I think Dr. Aggie's most prominent reason for assigning this book was to play devil's advocate. As I mentioned, most of the books we read in class are “social-media-is-the-future” themed, and by this point, many of us understand the power of real-time digital communication. Not only are we learning it in class, but we are living it. By selecting The Face-to-Face Book for the Digital Branding reading list, Dr. Aggie made our class question the effectiveness of social media marketing and take on a new perspective. While many classmates (myself included) disagreed with Keller and Fay a number of times on the effectiveness of social media, the book did force us to take a position, one way or the other, and further explore the practice of social marketing.

By proposing a book with unconventional themes for a social media class, Dr. Aggie not only engaged the class, but brought new viewpoints to the class. I think the book was assigned to emphasize the importance of integrated strategies in PR, marketing and communications. When we focus so closely on the evolution of digital communication, real-time social engagement and the power of Web 2.0 in social media courses, it can be easy to neglect the importance of offline word-of-mouth strategies, even though we know how critical they are.

Should the book be kept on the Digital Branding reading list? Why or why not?

I would argue that The Face-to-Face Book should be kept on the Digital Branding reading list, mostly for the reasons mentioned above. I understand why Dr. Aggie selected this book: to incite healthy debate, to make the class explore social marketing from a new perspective and to remind the class of the importance of integrated strategies (offline included). Because The Face-to-Face Book accomplished all three of these objectives, I found the reading to be beneficial to the class curriculum.

What did you learn from reading the book that is applicable to digital branding?

Although Keller and Fay often discredited the value of social media and digital communication, I believe this book is relevant to digital branding practices. Most importantly, the book reinforced the idea that any online efforts in digital branding should be complemented by offline branding efforts. For example, social media and digital communication can be used as effective PR and marketing channels (even if Keller and Fay don’t agree), but if brands aren’t sparking word-of-mouth conversation offline, their strategies are hardly effective. For me, The Face-to-Face Book provided enhanced snapshots of the power of word of mouth in collaboration with digital practices. For instance, Proctor & Gamble identified the most social and outgoing individuals within their online community, Tremor, and encouraged them to share their love for P&G products and advocate for the brand offline.

The Face-to-Face Book also discussed general goals for social marketing that I believe are relevant to digital branding. For example, social marketing and digital branding need to focus on humanness, connectedness and genuine mutually beneficial relationships. I could not agree more with Keller and Fay’s claim that branding efforts (digital or otherwise) must put the customers (real people) at the center of plans, strategies and implementation. It always has been and always will be about relationships, and even though Keller and Fay focused on offline branding, many of their theses on relationship building in The Face-to-Face Book are also applicable to digital branding.

What did you like about the book?

I liked that the book offered a new perspective and a variation to typical social media lectures. It is common to read PR books that favor social media strategies, but to read a book that challenged most of what we’ve already learned in social media courses kept the class on our toes. I liked that the book sparked more debate and conversation (both in agreement and disagreement with the authors) because classes became more engaged and hands-on than previous social media/digital branding lectures.

What did you dislike about the book?

However, I disliked that Keller and Fay seemed to offer very little support, reasoning and/or research to authenticate the numerous facts they presented regarding word of mouth. The authors commonly stated statistics like "one million offline word of mouth conversations resulted from the campaign, and two dollars were raised for every one dollar spent," but where did these stats come from? How can the authors verify one million offline conversations took place? Were they present during each of the one million conversations? I would have been interested to read more into their measurement practices. 

Connect The Face-to-Face Book to the other two books we've read in class.

In comparison to the other two books we’ve read in Digital Branding (Delivering Effective Social Customer Service by Blunt and Hill-Wilson and Branded! by Brennan and Shafer) The-Face-to-Face Book is very anti-social media. Authors Blunt, Hill-Wilson, Brennan and Shafer all seem to be on the “social-media-is-the-future bandwagon” Keller and Fay warn readers about. Delivering Effective Social Customer Service and Branded! offer successful strategies and case study examples of companies taking advantage of our culture’s digital transformation and utilizing social platforms to offer valuable customer service and customer engagement. On the other hand, Keller and Fay argue against digital communication and stress the importance of offline engagement. I think the authors of the previous two books would agree with Keller and Fay to an extent – an integrated PR/marketing approach is necessary; social media cannot do it all. However, I believe Keller and Fay would disagree with much of what Blunt and Hill-Wilson’s and Brennan and Schafer’s theories.

In some ways, I can see slight connections between the books: it’s always all about the relationships. Whether you’re using word-of-mouth strategies, digital strategies or a combined approach, it’s all about connecting with your audience and building mutually beneficial relationships.

Even though I didn’t love everything Keller and Fay had to say in The Face-to-Face Book, I wouldn't leave it. The book did have some valuable takeaways, and adding new perspectives to class discussions can be truly beneficial.