How Brands are Utilizing Tagging on Facebook

Last month, Facebook announced that users would now be able to tag brand pages in their photos unlocking a unique opportunity for brand advocates to show their love.  Even if the user is not a fan of the brand’s Facebook page, they would be able to tag their coffee as ‘Starbucks’ or their outfit as ‘Banana Republic’ and have the picture appear on the brand’s page under Photos.  While the new feature makes the page more vulnerable to spam, the benefit of users promoting products and services on behalf of the brand seems to outweigh the risks.  Administrative users of brand pages can also remove tags if necessary.

As an example I tagged John Deere, who I am not a fan of on Facebook and my photo shows up in the ‘Photos and Videos of John Deere’ section automatically.

And when you view the photo on my personal album, you can see John Deere as tagged, giving a link back to the John Deere fan page.

Examples of Facebook Tagging In Use

Zappos.com and Eddie Bauer were early adopters of the new tagging feature, making announcements on their wall directly asking fans to tag their photos containing the brand’s apparel. Even better, both brands took the call to action a step further, actively commenting on user photos complimenting their look which encourages other fans to share as well.  An example below shows Zappos.com’s original wall post and their engagement on a fan photo.

Additionally, Domino’s Pizza (who is also promoting photo tagging like Zappos.com) was ahead of its time utilizing another feature—tagging fans in comments.  Back at the end of April, they asked fans to tag a friend they would give their last slice of pizza to.  Out of 448 comments, 168 people were successfully tagged in the post comments increasing the post’s reach by almost 22,000 additional impressions*.

What brands have you seen use Facebook tagging to interact with their fans?  Share with us in the comments below!

*assumes the average fan has 130 friends



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