This week Facebook celebrated its 4th Birthday and despite lawsuits, the social network has had a great 4 years. The network, dethroned MySpace, passed 600 million users and has even had a film made about it. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been transformed into a geek celebrity and many other companies have tried to create a better social environment, including Google but no one has yet come near.
What about Businesses?
Facebook currently has 1.5 million business pages online and a recent Virgin Media Business survey stated that 32% of the UK businesses they questioned were on Facebook. With 50% of active Facebook users logging into the network each day it makes sense for companies to create their own pages on the network and interact with their customers. 79% of Fortune 100 companies now use social media and Facebook business pages combined now have more than 5.3 billon fans.
There have been many reasons for businesses to join the network with social interaction giving them a way to resolve problems quickly and users on networks being more easily persuaded to purchase. Ebay stated that online communities spent 54% more on their site than non-community users.
While many companies don’t list their exact profits Dell has reported they gained $3 million in sales from social media sources, a great example of how businesses have created their own pages and increased their profit.
What is next for the company?
Facebook may have taken over our online social interaction but the company has plans to become even more important to our online activity. Facebook has added Deals and Places to its site to boost business awareness and help companies to interact with their current customers. What’s going to happen in the near future for Facebook is anybody’s guess but making the site a main destination for online purchases is surely something they are considering.
What are your thoughts on Facebook and what the company has next in store for users and companies?
2 Responses
Excellent!
I think the network will continue to improve, people would get bored if it didn’t. The network from a company side really helps us to keep customers updated and to listen and respond to any queries. I think the deals addition is something my company will have to look into.