Social Media Website Critique #1-Facebook

This part of my blog will focus on the pros and cons of various social media websites. This post will focus on social media giant Facebook. Since its inception in 2004 it now has, over 500 million users worldwide, making Facebook the largest of the social media sites.

To get started, here are some interesting statistics-note these numbers were taken from their stats page at http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics. Most people on Facebook have an average of a 130 friends. People spend 700 billion minutes on Facebook a month. 200 million users access Facebook through mobile devices, with these 'mobile users' being twice as active on Facebook as 'non-mobile users'.

Facebook boosts 70 different language translations and 70% of users are outside of the U.S. Facebook is truly a global community.

In a business sense, here are a few more stats-Facebook users install 20 million applications a day. Since they added social plugins in 2010, an average of 10,000 websites integrate with Facebook each day, with over 2.5 million websites integrated now!

So with all of that said and done let's get to my critique part of Facebook Pages. Just to get it out of the way, I am basically only looking at the business capabilities of the social network.

Example of Facebook Page

The first and major draw of Facebook is the fact that it is the largest of all the social media networks. This creates a large target market for a business. An additional draw of Facebook is the high use by mobile users-this creates a on-the-move approach to marketing. For example, a flash sale for the afternoon is advertised to your contacts on Facebook for your business and these people will be reached on their mobile devices wherever they are! The hope is that since they are already out and about-they will stop in and spend money at your store.

Another draw of Facebook marketing is that after your Business Profile Page is created - you can advertise on the side of people's Facebook pages in targeted areas for a somewhat reasonable price. This advertisement would push people towards your page and inform people of your product or service. This is an excellent strategy for brand recognition and market penetration in a targeted area. Additionally these ads are paid as you go - so it is good to help out with strict marketing budgets.

The newest marketing buzz is about the power of the 'Like' button on Facebook or an embedded badge on your website displaying the like button. It is good because it is another way to spread the word of your business to people that might not otherwise have heard of your business.

If someone likes your site-this 'like' and your business name/page is posted to their contacts 'news feeds' for all to see. The like button also holds some credence in marketing, as a consumer is more likely to listen to their friend's opinions on a business, than the traditional spokesperson or some paid celebrity pitching a business or product.

Placing your product photograph's up on your Facebook Business Page is easy and a good way to let your contacts know what stock your business is carrying. As well, it is a good way to promote new arrivals or seasonal goods.

Facebook Pages also are readily accessible through search engines, increasing visibility for your brand. The easily embedded profile badge is another way Facebook makes it easy for your business website to be integrated with the social media website giant.

And lastly the way videos are easily integrated into Facebook-it allows for more in-depth video integration with your contacts if needed.

Now for some cons: One of the first problems I have with Facebook Pages-is the fact that they are not easily changed to match your corporate identity. You must conform to the look and feel of the”Facebook” look. This is a drawback when trying to create image recognition with your target market. Inversely it creates a level playing field for a new or small businesses that cannot afford big budget branding campaigns.

The look itself is very plain and basic-with a place for user posts and a photo area. It is good because it takes little user knowledge to access your information...but is boring to the eye.

Another issue I have with Facebook is that it acts “cagey” sometimes. I understand that this is hard to avoid, as it is a very large site and it is hard to monitor every little bug on every portion of the site. However-it can be very trying, especially when trying to time manage and maintain productivity when marketing. For example, I had to invite friends to my page three times because of site 'bugs', which was very time consuming.

This is all that I have to say today on the subject. I will probably revisit the topic in the future. So for now, I state that Facebook is a definite must when social media marketing and is really a good media outlet!