State Farm Insurance is one of the latest traditional companies to tap into social media. Within which they’ve attached themselves to the ever-popular internet meme fail, which is depicted within pictures and videos of unsuccessful events and used to indicate contempt or displeasure. Utilizing the powers of Facebook, video, and celebrity they have crafted a friendly, tongue in cheek experience to pull visitors in.

Anatomy

Focused within their Facebook Page, State Farm’s Fail Fighters is a socially interactive center of easily digestible content depicting fails. Being housed within the Page of an insurance company propels viewers to ponder how nice it would be to have insurance if any of these fails were to occur to them. This association is best described through their slogan “No one can keep fail from happening. But when it does, State Farm is there for you.” The page contains three main sources of content: They have recruited popular YouTuber Philip DeFranco, whose Monday-Wednesday-Friday news show averages 1,000,000+ views as their Fail Fighters spokesperson. At the top of their Facebook landing page is Fail Fridays featuring Phil DeFranco, a weekly series where Phil depicts two fails proposed by fans in the Page’s comments section from that week and pits them against each other in his video for viewers to determine the biggest fail of the two. Fail Fridays actually originated on Phil’s YouTube channel before being reincarnated on State Farm’s Page. This allows State Farm to tap into his already loyal following with content proven to be enticing to them. Below Phil’s video is the Fail of the Week section, which houses a new video every week depicting a major fail. Visibly titling it as a weekly occurrence, like Phil’s Fail Friday section, sets an expectation for visitors and brings them back to the Page on a weekly basis. The Vote for the Bigger Fail allows visitors to choose between two major fails depicted in photos, as opposed to the videos shown above. This is easily digestible content that is easy to vote on and just as easy to share (For the most recent vote I chose Parking Fail).

Bottom Line

These are three sources of easily digestible content that involves visitor participation in a very simple manner. Visitors become part of the State Farm Nation and get to interact with one another through voting and sharing their thoughts and a laugh. The Message link accompanying every comment makes connection with fellow viewers a seamless one-click process. Also, having every interaction with the Page auto-posted to visitors own Walls increases exposure to each fans social network. Check out http://www.facebook.com/StateFarmNation for more details.