I attended the conference of Clara Shih at the last Webcom and although, I had some doubts regarding some of the figures she threw at the audience; I have to admit I was quite impressed by the overall picture and, in the end… convinced.
Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, Sell More Stuff.
That’s her sales pitch and subtitle for her book, The Facebook Era. I guess, it says it all; but how sound is it? What data is there to back up this vision? Let’s take a look at it.
The Big Picture
Well, first and foremost, the Facebook crowd has changed a lot in the last year:
Facebook is no more a “kid’s thing”, these are two prominent groups now in this hub: 35-49 and women 55+ (don’t ask me why, regarding the women; some bad tongues would argue that it’s because women like to talk more than men but, hey…)
For the first time… in a long time of the very short Internet history; another web site, namely Facebook, has driven more traffic than Google; that is, more traffic towards MSN.com and Yahoo. So much so that Facebook is now considered the new Internet portal with more 570 M people attending and more than 1 M developers exploring new boundaries of social interaction and social marketing. And this phenomenon is growing, well; I guess you also guessed right, exponentially.
So, there are a lot of people there but where is the money? “Show me the money”.
The Weak Is Strong
Again, let’s put this Facebook thing in perspective; here are two quite strong and recent assertions:
Facebook is the single most influential company of all time – Business Week
Social technology is the single most important CRM trend this year – Forrester
Now those two tenors might just be trying to position themselves as trendy, fearful of missing the train but normally, they do their homework, first. One must understand that we just went from a World Wide Web of Information to a World Wide Web of People (although I will add hues to this one in a next post…).
And now, looking at the major and global social networking trend though; we need to realize that in order to succeed, one must now be where its customers are and use their favourite communication channels and tools, Facebook among others…
So, what does Social Media (Facebook) mean for business and marketing?
- SM changes the way a brand may interact with people and it creates a lot more data about people available to use as Marketing Intelligence
- SM knows and shows the Social Graph of everybody (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
- Now, the web can get to know you and provide you exactly what is relevant to you; thanks to Facebook profile and FacebookConnect and the likes… oups!
- SM is also a Social Graph attached to you; a network of relationships that you can bring along with you on the web
- Customers are expecting “personalized interactions” with brands; they want you (brands) to know them; hence, to understand them and, their needs
- SM maximizes the power of discovery and the capacity of being connected; keeping in touch with whomever and whatever interests you.
In short, everyone has a Social Capital which we bring along now and which translates into Business Capital; the fact and the matter is that it (this Social / Business Capital) maximizes at the fringe, through weak ties; that’s where transactions and sales are, not with your friends but through friends of friends of friends... Just stop for a moment and remember; that’s how sales have been happening since... forever, right?
One can say that Social Media really captures the power of the Long Tail. New sales and new transactions are getting into reach through the “weak ties” of your Social Graph; those people with whom you share none or very few friends. This is where the Marketing Shangri-La lies; that’s what you ought to look at in Facebook and Social Media and, where you ought to put your networking efforts.
I, for one, really think that there is more to Facebook than just words and pictures...
C U…