7/1/2010
10 Reasons Your Business Should Be on Facebook, Part 1
Facebook: Leader of the Social Media Pack
With 2009 revenues of $700 million and predicted 2010 revenues of upwards of $1 billion, Facebook is a force to be reckoned with in the advertising world. A company that roughly doubles its revenues every year is simply not one you’ll want to ignore when planning your next advertising campaign.
Internet Retailer states the following about Facebook advertising in a May, 2010 post: “Among the web sites that displayed ads, social network Facebook led the pack in the first quarter with 176 billion display ad impressions, about 16% of the total, comScore says.” (For comparison, Yahoo! had a 12% market share, Microsoft 5.5%, Fox Media 4.8%, and Netflix and eBay .9% each.)
Facebook enjoys an Alexa ranking of 2, topped only by Google. This immensely popular social media site can be a real boon to your business’s bottom line, and that’s putting it mildly. Here are five of 10 good reasons why. (I’ll share the other five in Part 2.)
1. Enormous User Base
Facebook currently boasts more than 400 million active users (which it defines as “users who have returned to the site in the last 30 days.”) That may not sound very active on the surface, but a large portion of those users log in far more often than that – many daily. (See Point 3.) That’s a huge potential audience for your product or service! Add to that the undocumented number of casual visitors, “lurkers,” and search engine referrals, and your potential market via Facebook can become quite explosive.
2. Global Reach
The above statistics page also tells us that about 70% of Facebook users are located outside the United States, which opens the door to a worldwide market for your product or service. This is a real plus for those companies already involved in the global marketplace and a great opportunity for expansion for those that aren’t. Facebook currently offers a translation function that renders its site into 70 languages, giving your advertising incredible reach.
3. High Daily User Activity
On any given day, 50% of Facebook’s active users log in to the site. That’s 200 million people in a single day! Your ad won’t reach all of them, of course. But that’s a huge pool from which to cull a target market. The fact that your ad will target those most likely to be interested in your offer will make it even more effective than if it had gone out to everyone. The important point here is that Facebook users are an active group, which makes them likely to be more responsive than average to offers that interest them.
4. Large Blocks of Time Users Spend on the Site
Facebook users spend over 500 billion minutes per month on the site. That’s 8.33 billion person-hours spent browsing, reading, commenting, and posting photos, links, textual items, and comments on all of the above. That’s also 8.33 billion person-hours spent receiving exposure to Facebook advertising. To put it bluntly, Facebook is addicting. And you can use that fact to your advertising advantage.
5. Influence of Facebook Friends
Ad and page “endorsements” by friends, made via the ubiquitous Facebook “Like” button, have incredible potential to create increased ad views and page interactions for your company. Users tend to assign greater credibility to ads and pages that their Facebook friends have “Liked.” That means that if people find your ad interesting or enjoy interacting with your company’s Facebook page, many of their friends likely will, too.
The World’s Most Popular Virtual Meeting Place
Facebook is the world’s favorite place to congregate online, and that in itself is enough of a reason for your business to advertise and/or build a community there. Add the above five factors to the mix, and the site becomes one of the best Internet vehicles for getting the word out about your business. And, while this combination of five factors offers enough incentive for creating a Facebook presence for your business, next time we’ll look at five more great reasons why your business can hardly afford not to be on Facebook.
What are your thoughts about the potential payoff these five items of Facebook “trivia” have to offer today’s businesses?
(Image Source: Wikipedia)
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14 Responses to 10 Reasons Your Business Should Be on Facebook, Part 1
While I am certainly active on Twitter, I’m still getting acclimated to Facebook. Thanks for the motivation!
Hi, Heidi! For me, it’s just the opposite! (In fact, I’ve yet to join Twitter, because I’m afraid I’ll spend even more time on social media sites than I already do — which is plenty! It’s only a matter of time before I do, but I’m hoping to muster up a bit more self-discipline first!) Facebook can be great for business, as well as social, connections. Happy to help motivate you to further explore its potential. Thanks for your comment!
Thanks for the good info and stats Jeanne! I look forward to reading the next 5.
You’re welcome, Linda! Facebook’s stats are fascinating, aren’t they? Glad you enjoyed the post.
Brad,
Any company of decent size that doesn’t have a Facebook strategy needs to get its head out of the sand. Where consumers go, so too must marketers.
A point of caution about the use of the language translation tools. Whilst these tools are useful, they have their pitfalls. Traditionally, translation tools have been programmed with a mass database of vocabulary and grammar rules. The limitation here is that translations have been given according to a strict set of rules, and do not take into account context, tone or manner. So you might have cases whereby your ad is translated correctly from a literal point of view, but with a tone and ‘feel’ which is completely different to what you were trying to achieve. (I’ve heard of one case where the expression “get the f*** in here!” was translated as “Please, come in”)
The other area to be careful of is cultural sensitivities and the potential for a message which is totally acceptable and relatable to users in the U.S. coming across in a manner which is either culturally inappropriate or not relatable to the target culture in question.
For both of these reasons, any marketing done using these translation services should be checked beforehand by native speakers of the language in question for tone, feel and cultural appropriateness.
(Interestingly enough, I read recently about efforts to design translation tools not by programming the device in question with complex rules, but instead by exposing it (the device) to hours and hours of television programs from the country of the language in question and recording the associated input into its memory. That way, goes the theory, the device ‘learns’ language in natural contexts, and, given enough information, would be able to understand and translate language differently according to individual contextual situations.
Learning language by watching TV. Good idea – I wonder how well this will work.)
You are so right, Andrew! Language can definitely lose a lot in the translation — or as you say, it can sometimes gain a lot that one didn’t intend it to gain (one excellent reason I’d recommend not using the English version of the mistranslated expression you’ve mentioned in your comment in a Facebook ad)!
Direct translations of foreign languages can often be so far off the mark that it’s either hilarious or frightening, since direct translations don’t take idioms or slang phrases into account. It would be fascinating to see the result of exposing translation devices to all those hours of TV. It could just work!
Though I could be wrong, I don’t believe the FB translation tools would be available for advertisers to use in creating their ads, but rather are intended for use by site visitors for translating content that’s been posted to Facebook in a language they don’t understand. That said, I certainly agree that it’s nonetheless important for advertisers who hope to reach people in other cultures to be culturally sensitive and culturally aware — particularly given the ease with which mistranslations can occur. While it may be difficult to avoid many of the language-based errors (and I think most people understand when these occur), we can certainly study and/or research the customs of other cultures, as well as the principles of international business, to help us avoid the more blatant cultural blunders we might otherwise tend to make.
I definitely agree that any advertiser who hopes to attract a particular foreign market should run his/her ad by a native speaker who also understands the language of the ad. That could help avoid a great deal of embarrassment and/or bad feelings. (Case in point: I wonder what a non-English speaker would think I meant by “run his/her ad by a native speaker.” I suspect this person would picture someone picking up an ad and running past — which would make perfect sense literally.)
Thanks for your substantive comment!
Oops! Sorry Jeanne,
Since you, not Brad, actually wrote the above question, I meant to address my comment above to you, and not to him.
I guess it’s just become a natural habit of mine to address comments on this blog to Brad. Old habits die hard!
I totally understand, Andrew — which is why I’ll respond to the above comment when I’m finished here. It’s very easy to make that mistake — especially when we’re in a hurry. We are, after all, creatures of habit. No apology needed.
Hi Andrew, that’s perfectly OK and I’m enjoying this conversation. I notice a lot of language issues on LinkedIn, where we sometimes struggle to understand each other in Group discussions and the like. It’s good to remember we’re engaging in global networks and need to be very patient cut each other plenty of slack:
“Coca-Cola Co. had what was probably among the earliest translation gaffes for a global brand, running into trouble in the 1920s when shopkeepers in China tried to come up with characters that sounded like Coke. Depending on the dialect, the literal translations ranged from ‘bite the wax tadpole’ to ‘female horse stuffed with wax.’” From -
http://www.wlstranslations.com/resources/Lost_In_Translation.php
That’s a fascinating article, Brad! I found another of its paragraphs particularly apt:
“In order to succeed, translated ad copy must be crafted as if it were originally written in the target language,” says Ms. Elting of TransPerfect Translations. She recommends using native speakers, who know the culture, particularly idiomatic expressions, in order to get across the meaning of the message rather than just a literal rendering of it.
I think that the use of facebook for any business is vital because of the amount of people that you can reach using this one online platform. I am still getting the hang of using it for business purposes though. I think it is easier to use it socially, then for the use of a business. Its understanding the line that divides the two and how to get users interested in you business that is the hardest part. Once you know how to tackle these issues and get the ball rolling, I think that Facebook can do wonders for any business. Its a way in which to get the other people interested and talking about your business through interaction. The idea of having that direct contact allows users to feel like you actually care, rather than just selling them a product.
Hi, Mandeep! I think you’re right that it’s far easier to use Facebook for social interaction than for business purposes. With time and practice, though, I believe a business can develop a successful Facebook advertising and promotional campaign. It may take a bit of trial and error, but sometimes that’s the best way to learn. I think the key is flexibility: the ability to creatively adapt one’s plan to changing conditions and/or new information on a regular basis. The good thing is that the ever-evolving social media environment is eminently well-suited to flexibility and the development of new approaches.
The interactive element is what gives social media its incredible power. Before the Internet, this element was virtually absent from advertising.
But, now, advertising contains a whole new dimension that provides brand new opportunities for attracting prospects and turning them into customers. It’s an exciting time to be in business!
Thanks for your comment!
Wow Jeanne – Thanks for this post. I would never have expected 70% of Facebook users to be outside of the US. I use Facebook quite a bit and I must admit, I do tend to take notice of the ads and click on them far more than I do on any other social media site. And as you mentioned – that like button is useful too.
Glad you found the information interesting, Cath. Statistics can sometimes be surprising — and fascinating! Facebook is certainly a high-visibility site for advertising. And Facebook really knows how to capitalize on its popularity. The “Like” button is a perfect example: It naturally piques the interest of Facebook users when they see that their friends have “liked” an item. That’s just human nature, and Facebook uses it to its best advantage.
Thanks for your comment!