Image by Getty Images via @daylifeWe understand the nature of the internet has changed significantly over the last two or three years.
You might agree the most obvious change has been the rapid growth of the ‘interactivity' of websites on a truly global scale as a proliferation of new websites and blogs are now Web 2.0 friendly, and the stunning growth in the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, it is becoming increasingly clear that people all over the world are using the internet as a principal means of communication in ever growing numbers.
We knew it was only time before, businesses both big and small recognised and understood the potential of such websites and networks for expanding their customer bases and bottom line profit.
Just a couple of years ago a large corporate website was purely one dimension in giving information to the visitors, now these sites are rapidly being adapted to offer far greater levels of interactivity to both customers and casual website viewers.
Clients now take advantage of 24/7 ‘Help’ and ‘chat’ lines that are appearing on many large corporate websites with increasing frequency.
We also feedback to companies and share thoughts with other potential clients as we now use more, polls, customer surveys, and inbuilt feedback facilities are becoming ever more popular too.
Now we grasp social networking websites with many millions of individual members from all over the world could potentially represent massive market places for their products.
It is for this reason that a site like MySpace.com (which in September 2007 passed 200 million account holders) has become such an increasingly attractive proposition for advertisers to become involved with. And the fastest growing (March 2010) Facebook tops 400 million users which will soon be the size of a continent!
For this reason, advertising is rapidly becoming an important topic of debate for the Facebook owners, moderators and community members.
The purpose of this blog is a study of how the Facebook site and social networking community is evolving, and how advertising opportunities and promotions or others activities fit into this rapidly expanding development.
Perhaps more importantly, I am going to look in detail at how you and your business will have the chance to use Facebook as a source of new customers for your products and services.
Please note that most commentators will refer to social networking sites as if they are all exactly the same, there are significant differences between them.
These differences serve to make the demographics and practicalities of using these sites for business purposes entirely different from one site to the next, as you are now discovering.
Facebook Background
Unless you have just returned from Mars you will have heard of Facebook and probaly have heard the history.
For any visiting Martians I will repeat the story of Facebook and perhaps identify someother Facebook history as we go.
Facebook was originally founded in 2004 by a group of ex-Harvard university students as a service for students of their own university.
Far from endorsing those who say you can start real website from a few hundred pounds Facebook was kicked of with about £300,000 of investment by a Mr Peter Thiel who was one of the founders of PayPal.
Indeed, over 60% of registered Facebook users are now non-college students, and that figure is expected to increase to over 75% (that will be 100 million users) in the next six months.
Facebook is currently enjoying 80 billion page views per month, and is the sixth most trafficked website in the USA, having recently surpassed eBay, and is now rapidly closing in on Google's traffic figures.
Nor is Facebook still quite so focused on the USA as it once was, with over 10% of Canadians now being Facebook account holders, with fast growing levels in the UK. Amazing to see that 70% of Facebook users are now based outside of the USA.
Hall of Denamark has an active group of about 2.5 million people from over 5 million Facebook users
Right at the start Facebook was almost closed down by a lawsuit from ConnectU this competitor said Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook not only stole the idea but also helped himself to the technology!
At the court door it is said that an investor settled by paying an undisclosed sum to the Claimant.
If you then add in the fact that Microsoft has recently paid $240 million US dollars for a 1.6% stake in Facebook (which values the company at around $15 billion in total) you clearly have a picture of a company and the website that is going places very quickly indeed.
It is clear that Facebook is a website and social community that is enjoying phenomenal levels of growth from what was a relatively closeted and deeply specialised background.
As at August 2010 around 220 million people log into Facebook every single day allowing numbers would to clearly indicate that Facebook could represent a potentially huge market place for any business or organisation who use this means of advertising to the site members.
I personally know people who are closing bricks & mortar as they say Facebook is the next Google Pay Per Click challenger.
Whether it is actually possible to achieve this in your business is one of the critical questions that we are going to look at in more detail with postings on this blog.
The most visited sites for traffic are currently
1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
Twitter is still behind at number 11 and myspace is now back at number 19
These differences serve to make the demographics and practicalities of using these sites for business purposes entirely different from one site to the next, as you are now discovering.
Facebook Background
Unless you have just returned from Mars you will have heard of Facebook and probaly have heard the history.
For any visiting Martians I will repeat the story of Facebook and perhaps identify someother Facebook history as we go.
Facebook was originally founded in 2004 by a group of ex-Harvard university students as a service for students of their own university.
Far from endorsing those who say you can start real website from a few hundred pounds Facebook was kicked of with about £300,000 of investment by a Mr Peter Thiel who was one of the founders of PayPal.
Indeed, over 60% of registered Facebook users are now non-college students, and that figure is expected to increase to over 75% (that will be 100 million users) in the next six months.
Facebook is currently enjoying 80 billion page views per month, and is the sixth most trafficked website in the USA, having recently surpassed eBay, and is now rapidly closing in on Google's traffic figures.
Nor is Facebook still quite so focused on the USA as it once was, with over 10% of Canadians now being Facebook account holders, with fast growing levels in the UK. Amazing to see that 70% of Facebook users are now based outside of the USA.
Hall of Denamark has an active group of about 2.5 million people from over 5 million Facebook users
Right at the start Facebook was almost closed down by a lawsuit from ConnectU this competitor said Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook not only stole the idea but also helped himself to the technology!
At the court door it is said that an investor settled by paying an undisclosed sum to the Claimant.
If you then add in the fact that Microsoft has recently paid $240 million US dollars for a 1.6% stake in Facebook (which values the company at around $15 billion in total) you clearly have a picture of a company and the website that is going places very quickly indeed.
It is clear that Facebook is a website and social community that is enjoying phenomenal levels of growth from what was a relatively closeted and deeply specialised background.
As at August 2010 around 220 million people log into Facebook every single day allowing numbers would to clearly indicate that Facebook could represent a potentially huge market place for any business or organisation who use this means of advertising to the site members.
I personally know people who are closing bricks & mortar as they say Facebook is the next Google Pay Per Click challenger.
Whether it is actually possible to achieve this in your business is one of the critical questions that we are going to look at in more detail with postings on this blog.
The most visited sites for traffic are currently
1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
Twitter is still behind at number 11 and myspace is now back at number 19
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