Social Network Marketing

Social Networking Websites (and though I phrase this in the plural, I essentially just mean Facebook) provide a plethora of options for their users.  Despite the nearly endless marketing opportunities that such sites have created, firms need to be careful about how they utilize them if they want to actually make headway into the half-billion user markets that such sites have created.

There are many ways that firms who market on Facebook make mistakes.  Here are a few:

1)  Overly invasive marketing tactics-->
One of the biggest problems with Facebook is that it is potentially the source of too much information.  But people who use the site don't want to be reminded of this.  So marketing tactics that delve into consumer interests or information too much tend to be very off-putting. There are certain ads that run on the site that take pictures from the albums of user's "friends" and then incorporate those pictures into the banner advertisements that run on the side of the page.  This really creeps people out.  Although it is an interesting technological feat, many people find it incredibly upsetting.

2)  Customizable advertisement that misses the point-->
Another off-putting marketing technique involves an application that tries to customize ad's based on the interests of the user and suggest similar things that the user would like.  The problem with this is that Facebook is primarily private and is in many ways the virtualization of everyday human interactions.  At this point the ad applications cannot understand context in the majority of things that people put in their profiles.  The fact that I like the LSU Tigers doesn't mean that I want to know about about exotic pet sales in the Southeastern United States.  Such advertisement also has potential to be offensive.  Women who are not considering marriage may be offended if Facebook continually suggests that they buy wedding dresses and baby products.

3)  Creating a Facebook profile for your firm-->
This is not always a mistake, but more often than not it is.  Bars and restaurants that frequently have special promotional deals can sometimes pull it off.  Providers of services can occasionally.  But for the most part, firms and businesses should stay away from creating a Facebook persona.  Users of Facebook grow very tired of endless marketing updates from employees that work at a company.  This is partly what lead to the demise of MySpace. The appeal of Facebook is that it is a networking service for people, so while it is a great way for individuals to market themselves, it is less effective for companies.  Users will most of the time change their settings to actively ignore updates from such businesses, making the impact of having a Facebook page minimal.  Websites are a much better source of general information about a business than anything that can be loaded onto a company Facebook profile.  People will not waste any time paying attention to what the persona of a business has to say.

In my opinion, the best way for a firm to market on Facebook is to create a page that people can "like."  This is very non-invasive and takes little effort on the part of users to endorse a product or business.

Shifting away from social network marketing, Facebook could potentially play a role in the evolution of the operational side of business.  It could be used in extensively in the planning and management of office activities.  We may see a time when meetings are scheduled as Facebook events.  Facebook offers a quick and easy way to keep people that are spread out across a large business on the same page.