Little Debbie is putting a lot of faith into Facebook.  Much like last year’s promotion that sent cupcake wrapped smart cars around the U.S. for product sampling, this year, they plan on sending an Airstream trailer to 20 cities across the U.S. where consumers can sample products and share pictures that will eventually (and inevitably) live on Facebook.

Last year’s promotion carried their Facebook fan count from 5,000 to 500,000, so naturally they’re looking for big numbers with this new campaign in hopes of topping the one million mark shortly after the end of the year.  What do they plan on doing with these newly acquired fans?  That’s the interesting part.  “It’s more about building relationships with consumers than trying to drive sales at this point,” Mr. Anthony said. “We’re thinking about Facebook as rich territory for developing future campaigns and for general ideation for all sorts for brand activities.”

I think this is pretty cool.  Hell, I’d love to work with a client that would spend 2.95 million on a social media campaign.  I’d love to work with a client that cared more about brand relationships than sales goals.  BUT, I’d also want to make sure that client was getting back the same investment they put in.  I’d want to have data that measured the amount of Little Debbie products purchased every so often from a Facebook fan vs. a non-engaged consumer.  No social media metric is impressive unless there’s data to back it up, no matter how high the number of fans or followers.  I’d want to make sure that I had skilled professionals monitoring those conversations, and mining the data for category trends and behaviors and tailor promotions towards them.  Most importantly, I wouldn’t focus on the number of interactions, I’d focus on the quality.

Do I think Little Debbie is moving too fast to reach scale rather than substance?  No.  I think they’re doing good.  Am I going to monitor this campaign and the future engagement they get out of it?  You bet. Kudos Little Debbie for branching out. 

Hostess, are you a believer yet?

Original article featured in the New York Times.