The release of their S-1 Documents revealed interesting information about Facebook’s business operations. Most of the Social Network’s revenue is generated from advertising & associated fees, their payment infrastructure enables users to buy virtual and digital goods from their Platform developers. Of the $3.71 Billion[1] revenue generated in 2011, $445 million was made through virtual goods sold by Zynga Games who account for approximately 12% of Facebook’s revenue with Facebook taking 30% of all Virtual Goods sold by Zynga Games, such as FarmVille and CityVille.

Facebook’s public offering will make it a public company, enabling anyone to buy shares in the company. Though this means huge amounts of cashflow for the company to further their visions, it also means monetising the company which could compromise Mark Zucherburg’s idealistic & user based approach to running the pioneer social network. Just as Apple challenged Microsoft for Software supremacy, Facebook now challenges Google for Internet supremacy. To strengthen this challenge, they will have to begin to split focus as their users, who have always been at the fore of their business and who form the basis of the business value proposition will now become the product of their business, firstly, and secondly the shareholders will now also need to see returns on their investments.

The company is expected to be listed on New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq in a few months and investors from around the world will be watching eagerly to see how this long awaited listing performs. Internet advertisers will be looking to see what this does to the performance of their ads, especially in comparison to long dominant Google.

References:
[1]: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm
[2]: http://mashable.com/2012/02/02/facebook-ipo-tech-stocks/

Google’s social rival, the massively popular micro blogging site Twitter, are on the forefront of the accusing camp. After the new search algorithm was launched by Google, Twitter accused Google of trying to drive traffic to their social network by manipulating search results. A Twitter representative made the following statement: “For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results any time they wanted to find something on the internet. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter, as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results. We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users”.

Personally, I think Twitter has a point. Twitter has had a massive social impact over the last few years (the “Twitter Revolutions” for example) and breaking news can often be found first on Twitter. If results from Twitter (or any other site for that matter) is the most relevant, the information should be available first in Google search results. This also ties in with the aforementioned Search Engine Optimisation. If you have to compete with only slightly relevant data from Google itself, you’re in for a losing battle. One option is to embrace the change from a social marketing perspective. But is this really best for the user?

In conclusion, it seems that many are worried that relevant results get pushed down in favour of Google + content. Fundamentally, relevancy is what it all boils down to. Google might not be in the wrong here, they are certainly entitled to promote their social network, but they should not compromise the quality of their search results in the process.

Twitter/Facebook - image credit - www.cbsnews.com

2011

One of the most exciting launches in 2011 was the launch of the iPhone 4S, officially launched in South Africa December 16th 2011. The new member of the iPhone family has a dual core processor, improved camera (8 megapixels) and improved video capturing capabilities. With this Apple set a new standard for the development of Super Phones.

After months of speculation Google launched their new attempt at Social Media. Google Plus (Google+) was launched in mid 2011. The platform seems to be a combination of features from existing social media platforms and is visually very plain and simple to understand. It remains to be seen if Google+ will play a big role in Social Media or will it come to an end like its predecessor Google Wave.

YouTube got a little renovation. In 2011 YouTube improved the user experience of their website. They changed the layout to make navigation and finding channels easier and also made it visually more appealing.
Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5B, a dedicated Android partner, which will enable Google to supercharge the android ecosystem.

2012

Mobile! I think a lot of tech companies will be focusing on building better and more functional mobile applications as the market for smart and super phones is exploding. Mobile penetration in Africa especially is higher than some European countries. I think we’ll see a lot of innovation in the mobile application sector especially in terms of location based services, social networking, mobile commerce and mobile banking. I think we’ll also see advances when it comes to mobile hardware especially battery life.

Social media should have a large impact on search engines delivering more personalized search results than ever before. I also think Google and other large search engines will take social media more in account when it comes to delivering organic search results using user generated information to establish whether a website is a good resource or not. See Marcel’s article: The Impact of Personalized Search on SEO

Android will probably increase their market share in mobile device operating systems with the purchase of Motorola Mobility.

Whatever is in store for us for the year 2012 – it will be an exciting year for technology. I am sure we’ll see great innovation in technology in general and especially in mobile devices.

Quite understandably, especially from the perspective of the United States, the top global topic of 2011 was the death of Osama bin Laden. The deaths of Apple’s Steve Jobs and singer Amy Winehouse were the 5th and 7th most popular topics respectively and Charlie Sheen’s antics landed him as the 4th most popular global topic on Facebook in 2011. The Royal Wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William, which happened in April, is at position 6. The massively popular Call of Duty game franchise, was the 8th most talked about global topic of 2011 with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Other topics in the top 10 include: ‘Casey Anthony found not guilty’, ‘Military operations begin in Libya’ and ‘Hurricane Irene’.

Facebook also provides country specific status trends of 2011 (you can take a look by following the second link below). Unfortunately South African topics are not provided (I am sure the Rugby World Cup would have featured in one form or another). Some interesting status trends from other countries include: UK Riots (United Kingdom), Skrillex (Canada), Planking and Skrillex (Australia), UFC and Slipknot (Brasil).

2011 has certainly been an exciting, tragic and strange year for the 3rd rock from the sun.

Learn more about Social Media Marketing

Links:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150391956652131
http://www.facebook.com/facebook?sk=app_271705986210152

There are various reasons why Facebook fans don’t “Like” a Company on Facebook:

• 54% don’t want to be bombarded with messages or ads,
• 45% don’t want to give any companies access to personal profile information,
• 29% don’t want companies to contact them through Facebook,
• 23% don’t see the benefit of it,
• 4% don’t understand what it means to “Like” a company.

If a Facebook fan likes your Company page, it is very important to observe that they do so with an expectation. People don’t just “Like” every page on Facebook, they “Like” it for a reason. Fans like Company pages to gain access to exclusive content, events, sales or promotions.

47% of users “Like” a page to receive updates about the company, persons or organisation in their newsfeed. 26% want to interact with the page owner. The survey also shows that only 24% want to be contacted through other social media channels such as Twitter once they have interacted with a company on Facebook. 37% do not expect anything to happen.

Media such as photos and videos always perform well on Facebook. It grabs attention in newsfeeds and it is easy to share.

Just ask. People like to interact with each other so ask for those opinions on topics, and if you want your fans to share favourite content, go ahead – ask them.

One of a fan’s expectations is that the page owners will thank them for their replies and for sharing their opinions. From time to time, talk about things other than your products. Wish them happy holidays. Ask them fun questions or to share their personal stories.

Remember, if a fan likes your page; interact with them, because it’s one of the biggest expectations any Facebook Fan has.

This was announced Tuesday 20^th September 2011 by Vic Gundotra, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering on the company’s blog. “For the past 12 weeks we’ve been in field trial, and during that time we’ve listened and learned a great deal. We’re nowhere near done, but with the improvements we’ve made so far we’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups. This way anyone can visit google.com/+, join the project and connect with the people they care about.”

The new features are said to be rolled out over the course of today globally. [1]

Some of these features include improvements to +Hangouts which uses video to allow people to connect “face-to-face-to-face”.

Hangouts on your phone – the mobile app was rolled out on the Android Market Tuesday allowing Hanging out anytime from almost anywhere.

Hangouts On Air – allows Google+ users to speak to large audiences or view public broadcasts.

Hangouts with extras – offers additional features enhancing time spent hanging out such as : Screensharing – so you can show off pics, high scores or anything else that may be on your screen. Sketchpad – to allow drawing, doodles or scribbling together. Google Docs – enables writing, planning or presentations as a group. Named Hangouts – for creation of a public hang out based on any topic, be it Medicine, Politics, Fashion, or Music. Thought the extras are still under construction these features are being previewed and Google is looking for feedback.

Hangouts APIs – allows developers to build apps and games.

Search in Google+ – Enables users to perform searches of any topic returning relevant posts and popular web content. “Google+ search results include items that only you can see, so family updates are just as easy to find as international news”.  [1]

Google+ brings interesting innovations to Social Media as we have come to know it, and is sure to give long standing Social Media front runner Facebook a run for its money. Though the product is still new it has built a lot of excitement and looks promising to keep and build on this momentum.

References:

1. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-92-93-94-95-96-97-98-99-100.html

This week we will have a look at why you need to get professional help for your website, from the management of the website to all types of online marketing that can be utilised. The online marketing industry is an ever changing environment and if you are running your own company and still need to keep track of all the best practices needed to stay ahead something will get left behind.

Online marketing professionals work with websites and the marketing thereof everyday and trusting a company to handle your website might be worth a lot more than just the extra money that you will spend for their services.

People that I’ve met that ran their own PPC campaigns for example, realized that it was getting too involved for them to manage it properly. After handing it over to us they could focus more on their business and performance of the PPC campaigns also improved. Trying to do SEO yourself might be a bit more tricky because SEO is a lot more technical. You need someone that understands the technical side of how websites and search engines work to do that properly. Managing your social media marketing by yourself might work for a while but you will soon realize that as it grows that it will become time consuming, and you will never get to everything that you have to and do proper management of your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Do check back here the rest of the week for more reasons why you should use an online marketing expert.

Here are some goals that you can work towards in you social media marketing campaign:

Brand Awareness:

By creating interesting content and spreading it through social media platforms, people will start to get more familiar with your brand. Keeping your content unique will make you stand out from your competitors. You will not only make people more aware of your brand but they will also have the ability to engage and interact with your brand, by taking part in blog discussions etc.

Reputation Management:

You can use social media to influence the way customers perceive your brand. Social media give customers the power to complain about your company or say positive things and it is there for the world to see it. By making sure you give attention to any comments made by customers social media can work well.

Increased Traffic:

If you create unique relevant content on your social media platforms you will get relevant visits to your website. The people in your online community are interested in your products or services so make sure to give them relevant information. Also make sure you join communities with a similar audience than yours, to broaden your reach.

Promoting a product or Service:

You can also improve sales for specific services or products by advertising it through your social media channels. If you have already build up a big community and the products you are advertising are relevant, your advertisement will be very targeted.

If you set goals you will stay focussed and remember why you are blogging and tweeting.

Well this isn’t as clear-cut as you might think as social media has been confused as being certain social platforms used to generate social media. For instance when you mention social media most people immediately think Twitter or Facebook. While both of these are social media platforms social media is not just about the platforms users use to generate social media.

Social media is seen as media that is social in nature. Thus generated by people and not only by corporations, as was the case in early stages of the Web’s existence. This description form Wikipedia sums up Social Media quite well for me – “Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.”.

This means that any platform that allows users to publish information online is social. Even Wikipedia’s 3,202,005 articles, which have mostly been generated by the public, is a form of social media.

So now that you have an idea of what social media entails would you consider the following example as a form of social media? A UK based online bank has taken customer ratings made online and started posting it in it’s offline advertising on underground trains. Is this still social media or has it become traditional media?

Customer ratings are a form of social media that most companies don’t even recognize as being social. For a lot of companies this might be a customer service agent on it’s own as it encourages people to buy products by using comments gauge if a product will suite them. In the same manner this may discourage customers from buying a product that doesn’t meet there needs. Because customers don’t buy product that will fulfill their needs it indirectly lowers after sales customers support.

So now that you have an idea of what social media is we will show why you should be implementing it in your business and who it will benefit your business. Our next post will be on why you should be implementing social media in you company.