Opening the “Book” for Business

Facebook was revolutionary in terms of being the catalyst that started a wave of new social networking sites. Facebook was the upgrade to myspace.com, allowing users to like pictures, post statuses, check in to locations, create events, connect with people from around the globe, instant message other “friends”, and more. As a whole, Facebook was the opening doors that brought me in to the social networking world way back in 8^th grade. Since then Facebook has undergone major changes to the interface.

Initially, Facebook was a hard concept to grasp with the variety of options and complexity of the organization. However, similar to younger kids, I was able to quickly learn about the social media site without heavy instruction or help. I found myself posting away and clicking on the various links to navigate through Facebook, despite the difficulty of learning how to move around the site initially.

Businesses seemed to have caught on to the idea of Facebook similar to a majority of the population. Once a new, and fresh way to connect and communicate with people became a standardized way of communication over time. From my perspective, Facebook seemed to be the breakthrough social networking site to begin advertising and marketing products and services.

Today, companies of all sizes can have Facebook pages that highlight their company, values, products, and are able to reach out to their customers. Also, businesses can create challenges for customers that encourage checking in to a place so many times, or posting pictures and tagging the company. All are strategies to get customers more involved with the company and promote the business as well. Another marketing opportunity businesses have is similar to other social media sites in regards to having advertisements pop up on random pages or within a user’s newsfeed, providing extensive visibility to the product or service or company being displayed.

A drawback with using Facebook to market products is that the general population of Facebook users is shifting towards the older generation. As beneficial as it is to advertise to a group of people who are more financially independent, it can also be harmful in the sense that the younger generation will not be intrigued by the advertisements or Facebook at all. Facebook seems to be cluttered with advertisements, which draws users away from the site.

Personally, over time I have begun to use Facebook less and less besides as a place to connect with family and certain friends that lack other social media platforms and accounts. The cluttered look and feel Facebook has in terms of advertisements and uninteresting information, diverts my attention elsewhere. In a brighter light, Facebook is a great resource when trying to find reviews for a business or connect with people from across the globe because due to the amount of time Facebook has been around and is so populated, finding information about a topic, business, or even people sometimes is very easy.