Facebook is a free social networking service that generates income through advertising. It has over 845 million monthly active users globally. Key products include user profiles, photos, groups, and the newer Timeline feature. While the core service is free for users, Facebook makes money from advertisers who pay for ads and sponsored stories on the platform. Facebook can be accessed online through computers or mobile apps, and the company is headquartered in California with over 3,000 employees currently. Promotion of the platform involves businesses creating Facebook pages to engage with customers through regular posts, responses, and ultimately advertising placements. The company was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and several fellow Harvard students.
2. Facebook Marketing Mix Of Facebook
Product of Facebook
Facebook is a free social networking service. Once you have signed up you create your own profile
and publish photographs. You can publish personal information such as your interests, your contact
information and so on. Privacy has been a constant issue with Facebook, and more recently users
now have the ability to control their settings and to tier their friends and so on.
Facebook has more than 845 million monthly users (December 2011). More than 80% of these
active users are from outside North America. Timeline is the most recent product innovat ion
(September 2011). This feature allows users to frame their page as a story. It also allows users to
include more media such as music and movies. Other new product introductions include photos
(where users can share photos about activities), newsfeeds (would provide a summary of recent
activity of others that you subscribe to) and groups (which is a customizable area for connecting
with friends)
Price of Facebook
Facebook is free. There is no subscription.
Income is made through advertising. You pay for Facebook ads and sponsored stories. Advertisers
control their advertising expenses by setting daily or lifetime budgets. Costs are not set in stone.
Charges are made by clicks (CPC) or by impressions (CPM) for each advert or story. There are
tools on Facebook that help you to work out potential budgets. There is a bidding process for
popular terms and keywords.
3. Place of Facebook
Everything is done online either by using a computer or by using a cellphone or mobile device.
One simply registers by the Facebook website to create an account. If you have a cellphone you
can download an app and use the social network whilst on the go.
The business itself is physically based at 1601 Willow Road, Menio Park, California. The company
currently employs more than 3000 people and it is planning to increase its workforce to about 6600
people. Facebook is about to build a new campus on the other side of Route 84. Facebook in
common with Google and other tech companies calls its buildings a campus, rather like the
University.
Promotion of Facebook
Facebook makes most of its revenue through advertising. Their argument is that your customers
are using Facebook everyday as the way that they interact with friends. There are three steps to
engage with your customers on Facebook. First of all you create your own business page which is
free for businesses and is a way of engaging in relationship marketing. So a business would
promote a Facebook page on a website, on a business card or any other marketing communicat ion.
Then Facebook reason that you should engage with your customers by conversing with them. This
means regular posts and offers. You should respond to their comments (although this would work
best for a much smaller company) and you will learn how they actually engage with your site or
page by using Facebook insights (which is the Facebook metrics tool). Finally you would create
an advert, rather like you would with Google Ad words. You also have the opportunity to run a
sponsored story. It is advertising that generate most income for Facebook.
4. People of Facebook
Of course Facebook has a few well-known faces of its own. Mark Zuckberg is the co-founder
and chief executive of Facebook. The story of this business is now firmly embedded in popular
knowledge. This is how the story goes if you haven’t already heard it 100 times! Facebook began
in Zuckerberg’s Harvard dormitory room back in 2004. Originally membership was limited to
Harvard students but was expanded out to other American universities quite quickly. It spread to
all universities and then high schools as well, and then of course the rest of the world!
Other well-known names include fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris
Hughes.