We had a great start to our 6 week “Facebook Intensive Program” Training workshop with noted Facebook thought leader Clara Shih delivering the opening keynote. When Clara wrote the book “The Facebook Era” the social networking site was just getting big. But no one expected that Facebook would have such a mass adoption that it would be commonplace for everyone from 13 to 100(and beyond in some cases!) to have a Facebook profile. Back then her book was groundbreaking and was even adopted by Harvard Business School as their text book! Today, with over 750+ Million users we can safely say that 1 out of 6 people on this planet have a Facebook account! As Clara mentioned that it is not just Facebook but across all of social media including Twitter and LinkedIN that adoption rate has been growing. Social Media today is at the same place where internet was about 15 years back.

With that kind of growth in Facebook, businesses of all sizes have become serious from “Should our company create a Facebook page” to “How can we monetize on Facebook” and that is why Clara so aptly calls 2011 the year of social media execution.

The growth of Facebook certainly cannot be attributed to first mover advantage since there was Friendster, MySpace before them. Facebook’s growth can be attributed to two critical factors. They are:

1)  Facebook encouraged and enforced true identities of people – Earlier, in order to open an account on Facebook you needed to sign-up using your work email or school email id to easily verify user identity. This created a set of norms that encourages people share their true identities. When you have more strangers as your friends then you stop sharing.

2)  Facebook opened their app platform to developers – Third party developers can now create great apps for users. This engages users and enhances the overall functionality of the site. Facebook has created widgets like Facebook connect, comments that you can implement on your site. This allows you to easily port your community to your site.

Buyer Psychology

It is amazing how technology or technology platforms can quickly change consumer behavior. Some years back a search engine with a colorful logo on a plain white background changed the way we look for information on the web. Of course that was Google and they quickly changed the way we look for information, buy products, and even monitor how our business or personal reputation looks like online. Social media took this a step further and suddenly anonymous users now can be identified with the help of profiles. All social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn has a personal profile associated with a user. As Clara said “At the heart of this change in consumer behavior is Facebook profiles where it has become a template for our social media identity.”

What it means is that now we share all kinds of personal and professional information on our profiles like our spouses or partners, birthdays, companies we work at, places we travel, anniversaries, and so on. This in turn has become new cultural norm. From a sociological perspective relationships on the net are accelerating. Once we friend someone we decide up to what extent we want to pursue the relationship at both professional as well as at personal level.

For marketers this presents a goldmine of opportunity as now we can decide whom we want to target. Never before in the history of marketing did marketers have this control. Many old-timers would agree with me.

Clara also brought up two important points that as marketers we should think;

• Facebook page opens a communication channel: When Facebook users like your page, they consent to receive updates from you as the page owner.

• The power of trust: this is the word-of mouth phenomenon where a friend recommends a product or service to someone in their network.

Finally, Clara left us with a step-by-step method for creating a marketing gameplan:

1)      Always Hyper target your marketing message on Facebook

2)      Know when to use which medium – Facebook tab Vs. Your web site.

3)      Be human, be authentic

4)      Invest Your Time in Creating Killer Content

5)      Always Evolve your Marketing Metrics

6)      Have Fun and Keep Learning – Social Media and Facebook marketing is still new so lot’s to learn

Would love to hear from you. What was your key takeaway? Join in….

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