Search Marketing Blog
A Fresh Look at Facebook
Posted by Tyson Braun on 11.19.2008As a full-service Search Engine Marketing Company in Portland Oregon, we at EngineWorks offer complete SEM services for our world-class clients, including robust Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategies and campaigns. Now that I have been professionally managing several of these campaigns, I’ve come to view Facebook – my only social-media outlet before joining EngineWorks – quite differently.
A quality Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company will place your business in front of potential customers during various stages of the buying process and no where is this process flourishing more than when people are checking up on their friends. On Facebook, friends are shown “news feeds” on each other, tracing their every Facebook move. Many businesses are using Facebook to enter this conversation, monitor customer satisfaction, and deliver focused advertising.
In February 2004 a Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg, launched Facebook for his Harvard friends. Zuckerberg’s site allowed those with a Harvard email address to register and network with each other. A month later, Facebook opened its gates to several other schools’ students, first other Ivy Leaguers, then students of other universities. Nearly every day back then, Facebook’s homepage displayed newly approved schools, and users could expect a flood of students from these institutions to begin submitting “friend requests” to established users.
You see, on Facebook, it all begins with the creation of a profile. In the Facebook world, your profile is where people come to connect with you. Users then declare their “networks” to which they belong, along with list their interests, club affiliations, etc. The goal is to organize events and connect with like-minded people and organize hundreds of “friends” they likely would have otherwise forgotten.
Also in 2004, I began my freshman year of college and recall being told I should check out “the face book.” By the time I heard of the site and was permitted to sign up, Facebook was already open to several universities’ students. My school was “allowed” on October 14, 2004. That fall I learned that college freshman are the primed audience for a social networking site to thrive. New people entered our lives every day, and non-participation in the site would mean exclusion from great things, such as parties.
Facebook spread like wildfire that year, nearly everyone I knew was on it, and it became vital to my social life. Over the next four years, Facebook allowed nearly every college student in America to join, and today anyone can join and millions have, Zuckerberg became a millionaire, and the rest is history. I believe Facebook owes its success to its clean, simple interface and more interestingly, its segmented release to the masses. Facebook created a groundswell, which people seemed to love back then. I recall my dorm mates groaning when smaller, somehow “unworthy” schools were allowed to join. After all, this wasn’t MySpace!
Snooty behavior associated with exclusive clubs is nothing new, but those who entered college in 2004 are uniquely situated to view this development and learn social lessons from a fad that turned out to be useful. Now, as I work with the site on a daily basis professionally, I believe Facebook is an integral part of any businesses’ marketing plan, and a goldmine for those who use it correctly. The site’s audience has thoughtfully grown from college students to nearly everyone online. There are several useful applications for businesses on Facebook, not to mention its advertising system. Here at EngineWorks, we are utilizing the “Page Manager” feature, a great example of a useful application for businesses.
Page Manager was released in November of 2007 and, like the name suggests, allows one to create a “page” about a topic. Administrators can link back to their home sites, solicit “fans” of the page, deliver marketing messages, and raise overall awareness of their brand. The page is not only another result in Google search results or a link-relay hub, but can serve as a familiar forum where your potential customers are ready to engage with your business.
Back when I was Facebook’s target demographic, the site was less cluttered, but it remains a top outlet for users to connect with friends and navigate the Web. The business benefits of interacting with Facebook users are vast. Users divulge a lot of relevant information. Talk to them, listen to what they have to say, but don’t try too hard, and always remember, this still isn’t MySpace!
Sean McMahon 11.19.2008 at 2:42 pm
Hey Tyson –
Great post.
To put some numbers to the increased importance of Facebook, eMarketer published an article today stating Facebook ranks 6th in the Top 10 Online Display Adverting Publishers in the United States, just ahead of eBay and one position behind Google.
Here is the article with the ranking of the top U.S. display publishers:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006751
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