Friday, October 1, 2010

Facebook - retailers and brands, in or out!

Two years ago I got tons of emails from friends asking me to join facebook. It seemed almost that if you are not in facebook you are out.

With 500 million users worldwide and 120 million in the US it seems to be right.

Now another interesting move is happening. I did get over 10 emails from different companies asking me to join their facebook page in the last two weeks (just before the holiday season starts). Brands and retailers like Lufthansa, Bestbuy and Delta, almost all retailers I shop.

They are now understanding they can't ignore Facebook anymore. Facebook is the biggest portal in the world, not social network anymore it is really a social portal.
The big win for google.com back in time was that google was not a portal. Portals did not work out well and google had this great search engine.

Google is an amazing company and many people want to work for them (a company who had the grateful dead chef must be good).
But google was so concentrated on extending their service that they missed the social hub and the chance to build a social portal. To google's excuse, they are known as search engine and it is always hard to convince consumers that they can be more. Yes it seems to work with android, but only because businesses are driving the market penetration and not the consumers.
There are studies that consumers don't care to much of the OS of a phone, 60% of consumers even don't know what OS their smart phone has.

Facebook will soon for good surpass google as number one website, and brands and retailers do know it. They have to go into facebook even if they might not want. It is the best way reach out to majority of Internet users. And we will see another spike in new FB users sign ups because brands and retailers are doing more in facebook. Certain coupons, discounts and samples will be only available in Facebook.
Bestbuy, 1800flowers and Disney are already offering their products through facebook. We will see special deals only on Facebook to get users to sign up for Facebook brand pages. Pizzahut once offered 15% discount on pizza's ordered through iPhone to get as many usage of their iphone app, such things are coming into facebook.

Facebook is not only reaching 22% of the world population it has as well in America a 23% market share in display ads and in the UK even 30%





Facebook is as well number 1 in time spent in comparison to other social networks. We spend 6 minutes of each internet hour on facebook.






If we compare Facebook with google and time spent, then Facebook is the clear winner as well.






But the most important part is that the bounce rate. FB has much lower bounce rate. Which make sense, google is only a hub to other websites.

In FB the user stays there and even more when the brands and retailers are in FB. Then there is no need to go to any other website. The ultimate portal.







I predict within 12 months Facebook is number 1 and so strong that it is almost not possible to imagine how the life was without Facebook.

Dictionaries once extended their editions with "googled" as definition of search. Soon we will find something like "FBs" as a definition of social.

For brands or retailers not being in FB is missing a train to to success, however just being in FB or duplicating a brand page in FB is not the answer. The concept must be right.

FB will as well reduce the user base for Twitter and foursquare, since FB is offering service. If i need to bet money I would not bet on Twitter or foursquare.


- Posted using My iPad

Location:W Laurel St,Tampa,United States

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