This month we are taking a more extensive look at the power of Facebook and its potential shortcomings.
Facebook has been growing at an alarming rate since its inception in February 2004 and currently has nearly 600 million users worldwide. Originally set up as a way of interacting with fellow students, it now has the ability to share photos, provide an instant messaging service, create events, set up pages to advertise your business, provide email services with an @facebook.com address etc.
It can, in essence, provide the entire internet experience within its own boundaries. For instance you can watch trailers for the latest movies, view music videos, find out what your favourite band is currently working on, what an artist is doing next, read the latest news, all without leaving your Facebook profile.
With this in mind it is worth pondering the question; ‘will Facebook eventually become the internet?’ i.e. will people log straight into Facebook for their online experience or will they still proceed to a search engine to get what they want.
This is a vital question that marketers need to answer, as it determines where the online audience will be in the immediate future. For instance, in the recent past marketers have relied heavily on PPC campaigns allied with organic SEO to drive traffic to their websites, whereas now sites such as Facebook are playing an increasingly important role. This is demonstrated by the fact that a lot of companies are now pushing their facebook.com/product websites in their advertising, rather than their own websites.
Smirnoff Advert displaying Facebook address
A rewarding upshot of this shift in behaviour is the opportunity this presents to marketers such as myself – targeted advertising. With traditional online marketing methods such as PPC campaigns, banner advertising, SEO etc there was a degree of ‘scatter-gun’ to the approach, due to the fact that you were never entirely sure who you were talking to, with social media advertising this problem is almost eliminated. Social media advertising allows marketers to target adverts based on much more detailed information, such as gender, age, what movies they like, what music they listen to etc. For instance if you are promoting a film which is similar in content to Star Wars, you can advertise directly to all people on Facebook who have listed Star Wars as a movie which they like. Powerful eh?!
Another question that is posed by Facebook’s dominance and prevalence is ‘where will it end?’ or indeed ‘will it end?’ Over the past two decades we have seen the emergence of online communities, a lot of which achieved a degree of success before waning and inevitably falling by the wayside to the next big thing. Starting out with Friendster, social networking sites have been evolving since the late 1990s, with MySpace, LinkedIn and FlickR following soon afterwards.
MySpace is a perfect case to look at, as initially MySpace was the primary social networking site in the UK, however its profile pages allowed little expansion, with only a limited number of photographs allowed to be uploaded and with no privacy settings. It was these shortcomings, which helped fuel the transfer of millions of people to Facebook when it became available.
Which is why it is worth considering ‘what comes after Facebook?’ Will Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) bite off more than he can chew and end up irreparably damaging the company’s standings? Only time will tell, but it’s going to be an interesting journey!
In agency-related news this week we have been appointed by RuRoC – a UK based extreme sports helmet manufacturer, who have recently been chosen by Team Lotus F1 as their official helmet supplier for the pit crew. CH&A are delighted to be working with RuRoC and are looking forward to helping them achieve their potential in the coming months and years.
The PR team have been very busy this month, most notably attending the launch of Britain’s Next Top Model as part of promoting Heaven Skincare, by Deborah Mitchell. Deborah’s skincare range was also reportedly being used by Kate Middleton prior to the Royal Wedding, so the phones have been ringing off the hook with journalists wanting more information, as well as a free sample or two!
Thanks for taking the time to read our blog, I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on the Facebook debate, so please leave your comments below.
Chris H – Digital Marketing Manager.
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