The big names in the technology sector or the Big Four technology companies is incomplete without Facebook. This worldwide operating social media and social networking website shares a place along with Apple Amazon and Google forming the Big Four technology companies in the world. The company was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg along with his fellow Harvard college mates, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin. Facebook as its headquarters situated in Menlo Park, California, United States.
The Introduction of “Facebook”
A second-year student in psychology, in 2003 Mark Zuckerberg designed the earliest iteration of Facebook under the name Facemash. Facemash was then used as a website to analyze the attractiveness oF two student profiles in the Harvard University Campus. This website went through a series of speculations but eventually led to a better version of the same, under the name “TheFacebook” in 2004. This was a digital version of the directories handed over to the students at Harvard to know each other better. This platform gained a lot of attention among the students and over 34 other schools in the region. Students could post photographs, share their views and personal information, class schedules extra online.
By 2005, Facebook had changed its name to just, “Facebook” and was gaining popularity and reached over six million users by the end of the year. 2006, was the year Facebook went live worldwide allowing any individual age 13 and above to create their own Facebook profile online. From then till 2012, the website had crossed a proud number of one billion users.
Highlights of Facebook
Facebook which began as a traditional social media website for sharing and connecting with people across the globe is now only constricted to personal profiles but has extended to serve as a business marketing tool and an online marketplace.
Personal Profiles
This is the first and main objective of Facebook. Users can create their accounts using their personal information and include details on their work, education, and interests. You can easily connect with your friends and make new friends online as well. As known by everyone you connect with other profiles via accepting friend requests.
Facebook Pages
Social media influencers had brought in the trend of using Facebook pages for increasing their viewers. This can also be used for displaying your talent, ideas, and hobbies and also use it for business purposes as well. There are several options in creating your Facebook page depending on the purpose of the page such as business, blog, personal profiles, etcetera.
Facebook Marketplace
People are getting more and more involved in becoming their bosses by introducing online businesses. People can now add their products online for sale on the Facebook marketplace at great deals and get their brands on the map easily. Having listings on the online marketplace serves as a great platform for the businesses to easily reach their potential and targeted customers using the interest-based targeting features of Facebook.
Facebook Events
A similar version to calendering events, the Facebook Event also allows the user to post events, invite people online. People can select from the option to attend the event or to not attend the event or be in a ‘maybe maybe-not’ option as well.
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups is a platform for people with similar interests to come together to share their views and knowledge. Facebook Groups have the options to be kept a secret between the group members, closed group that requires the permission of the admin to approve to join the group and an open group where you can view content and join with the admin adding you to the group.
Importance of Facebook
Facebook has been attaining importance in promoting businesses for the last few years. Apart from the main objective of connecting people around the world, Facebook is now one of the best tools to use for marketing a business. Facebook marketing is the key element of Social Media Marketing or Digital Marketing as a whole. Let’s look at the main benefits of using Facebook for Business.
Benefits of Using Facebook for Business
1. Create potential business leads: Businesses can promote their social media posts on Facebook serving as marketing to collect names, contact details such as contact numbers or email IDs using the lead forms.
2. Increase brand awareness: Content marketing on Facebook through business pages can help in promoting the brand easily. Increasing the engagement of posts using optimized content and attractive designs will increase brand awareness among the targeted audience.
3. Improve website traffic: Posts in social media, and sharing content and web pages will aid in improving the direct traffic to the website.
4. Create a relationship with customers: Social media platform such as Facebook is the best way to easily understand the priorities and requirements of the customers. You can also easily collect the feedback of the customers directly from the social media pages of your business product or service.
5. Analysis and Insights: The Facebook business page and posts can be analyzed and used to get insights on how well the product or service is received by the public. This can also help in understanding the high performing pages and the phases that require improvement.
6. Advertising: Facebook allows the best way of advertising a product or service due to its detailed database. You can reach out to your targeted audience based on several options like demographics and points of interest.
The Facebook Business Model
The company is overall based on five pillars namely, the Newsfeed, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Occulus.
Facebook Newsfeed
Facebook Newsfeed is the most crucial component of Facebook. This is where the posts and ads are displayed in a series based on an algorithm of the frequency of post-viewing, interests, and many other factors.
Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is the online tool developed by Facebook for chatting online and making calls both audio and video to friends and dear ones across the globe excluding countries where such services are blocked. This independent application allows you to use existing filers and effects to make the call experience interesting. You also get the chance to play fun activities in the application as well.
Instagram is a social media platform for sharing visual stories such as photographs, videos, and direct messages. It also performs similarly to Facebook where people can easily connect and follow people with similar interests.
Whatsapp is a high grossing freeware communication application used worldwide having more than a billion users. Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook in 2014. It uses a cross-platform for messaging and Voice over IP (VOIP) service for online calls and video calls.
Occulus
With the current technology inferring more on virtual reality and content, Occulus is one such a platform that allows its users to interact and play games, learn, train and connect with similar interest users online.
The major revenue of Facebook comes from its advertising business model. As per the reports in 2018, Facebook’s revenue can be broken down into two major categories.
1. Advertisement: Ads constitute 98 percent of the total revenue of Facebook. Display advertisements and sponsored posts on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other applications constitute the major profit of Facebook.
2. Fees: 2 percent of Facebook’s revenue constitutes the fees on payment interfaces.
In the present era, Social media platforms are gaining extreme importance in business and marketing. Create a social networking platform for sharing different interests and thoughts connecting with people of similar interests and be the game-changer.
