Facebook is an internationally established brand, whose emergence and rise to popularity has in many ways initiated the current spike of social media boom, that society is currently experiencing both culturally and commercially. Its business appeal and profitability potential is enough for an existence of dozens of research articles depicting the details of Facebook marketing for companies that consider putting their advertisement on the platform. Facebook has been steadily manufacturing great profits from this advertising revenue, as well as from distributing collected data on its users to marketing and governmental agencies. When discovered, this line of Facebook operations has lead to a controversial conversation on subjects of data privacy in business. At the moment, Facebook occupies somewhat of a difficult spot, where its social media engine continues to attract and maintain users, but the public perception of the firm has massively deteriorated. Consecutively, the Facebook executives had to adapt its marketing and operational strategies to combat the negative publicity and ensure the excellence of the online experience the platform is providing to its customers.
Recently, the company has taken a different approach to its promotional campaigns, utilizing traditional channels such as billboards and television advertisement. In U.K. and North America particularly, the brand has changed its positioning to a more down-to-earth, multipurpose company-oriented image. The company is currently emphasizing its role in keeping the family members in contact, as well as the versatile nature of the Facebook engine and the services it provides. By investing in the traditional marketing campaigns, the brand highlights its connection to the older demographic despite the evidently technological nature of the app. It also markets itself to the more reluctant users of the modern technology, who are concerned and sometimes angered by the increased digitalization of the modern life and communication (White & Boatwright, 2020). Current Facebook’s marketing is focused on positioning itself as something more then an Internet brand, but rather a company which can hold weight offline. From a more cynical point of view, one might argue that this change in strategy ties back into the aftermath of the aforementioned controversies (Lankton, et al, 2017). Nevertheless, the diversification of the brand image has been a brand with the digital corporation recently, and a profitable one at that.
As of 2021, Facebook has 1.56 billion active users, which is the largest number of active accounts compared to other social media platforms in the industry. However, the growth rate of the registration of new accounts has been slowing down for quite some time, with competitors such as Twitter, TikTok and Instagram becoming increasingly popular among the younger users. Nevertheless, although all of these apps compete for usership in their status as social media software, calling them close substitutes would have been unwarranted. Facebook delivers a unique online experience to its customers by virtue of providing a user-friendly messenger engine (Tran, 2017). When using the platform online, one might download the Facebook Messenger separately, thus being able to contact their friends and associates quickly, without having to navigate the entire website. With phone number-centred communication becoming increasingly less common, the social media texting replaces it for a variety of purposes. In this area, Facebook does compete with WhatsApp, but Instagram, Twitter and especially TikTok focus on different selling points. Furthermore, even WhatsApp can’t be called a full replacement for Facebook, since it is a messaging app, rather then a social media engine.
As a business owner, I would incorporate the Facebook marketing into my commercial and communicational strategy by conducting a research of the detailed demographic of Facebook users. Although numerous and diverse, it does contain patterns of certain user bases being more likely to actively use the app and the platform over others. I would then utilize the obtained knowledge in designing my further promotions and communicate it to the relevant employees within the business.
Facebook advertisements are, arguably, the main source of the company’s income, which by extension means that the platform has already developed a user-friendly mechanism for such commercial deals. I would ensure to maximize the output of said tool by shaping the contents of the advertisement specifically to suit the majority of the Facebook’s audience. In specifying this target audience I would take into account not only the number of profiles in each demographical group, but also the number of hours these profiles’ owners are spending on the app (Kawaf. & Istanbulluoglu, 2019) Separately, I would also attempt to gain access to the data on the Facebook Marketplace feature users, under the assumption that they are more likely to use the information displayed on Facebook in purchasing decisions (Carlson, 2017). Finally, in measuring the efficiency of my Facebook advertising campaigns, I would analyze the data on how much time the platform users spend interacting with them and at which frequency. The data on social media commercial engagement is easy to collect and request in the modern day setting. I will then take into account the demographical characteristics of the most actively engaged users, further increasing the specificity of my campaigns.
In conclusion, despite its involvement with social and Internet controversies, Facebook remains a very profitable partner, especially for small and medium enterprises. Its user base is unparalleled at the Internet so far, and by definition presents a business owner with a variety of opportunities. However, to maximize the commercial benefit of the Facebook marketing one needs to understand the target audience, and whether it crosses over well with the main demographic of active Facebook users.
References
Carlson, M. (2017). Facebook in the News. Digital Journalism, 6(1), 4-20. doi: 10.1080/21670811.2017.1298044
Kawaf, F., & Istanbulluoglu, D. (2019). Online fashion shopping paradox: The role of customer reviews and facebook marketing. Journal Of Retailing And Consumer Services, 48, 144-153. doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.02.017
Lankton, N., McKnight, D., & Tripp, J. (2017). Facebook privacy management strategies: A cluster analysis of user privacy behaviors. Computers In Human Behavior, 76, 149-163. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.07.015
Tran, T. (2017). Personalized ads on Facebook: An effective marketing tool for online marketers. Journal Of Retailing And Consumer Services, 39, 230-242. doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.06.010
White, C., & Boatwright, B. (2020). Social media ethics in the data economy: Issues of social responsibility for using Facebook for public relations. Public Relations Review, 46(5), 101980. doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2020.101980