FaceBook for Social Media Marketing
Posted by Dave Pye on 25 Oct 2006 at 03:29 pm | Tagged as: Social Media Optimization
Let’s face it - I’m a little long in the tooth to be using FaceBook. But, as they’re attempting to increase their value, FB has opened up the network to people without .edu email addresses. So here I am, an SEO/SEM enthusiast, getting to know all about ‘the Book’ and maybe feeling a little creepy about it in the process.
FaceBook is a social media network - a very functional and cool one, and Social Media Optimization has become an important facet of Search Engine Marketing. Social Media is hitting the online marketing space faster than a speeding RSS feed. The concept continues to evolve, and more and more internet marketers are looking for the next major way to fully leverage Social Media strategies for clients, products and services. Here is a site I made devoted to explaining SMO in greater detail.
SMO has the ability to attract and engage customers and web traffic in a way that organic search results and ‘Sponsored Listings’ on a search engine never will. The emerging field will grow with the same speed that social media itself has grown, as new tools and practices are shaped into coherent SMO tactics. If you use social media tools like a blog, Squidoo or HubPages for marketing purposes, then your focus should be on attracting potential customers or clients to visit your site in order to participate in relevant conversations about your products or services. SMO is about increasing the volume and richness of those interactions.
So, since we’re here, let’s talk about FaceBook. Aside from the obvious banner advertisements, how else do you see the network being used for marketing purposes - especially since it is now open to the public? And will the backlash from faithful members unappreciative of the new wave of intruders and marketers spell the end of the network’s credibility and popularity? I think it very well might.
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I think that FaceBook’s decision to go mainstream and open its doors to the public greatly cuts down on the valuable demographic they had cornered (in a sense): college students. Realizing, of course, that college students were more likely using FB to look at the profiles of friends, hookups, potential hookups, or their favorite a cappella singer and often times completely ignored the ads, it was still a huge age-group practically corralled into one location. I also realize I may have spelled corralled incorrectly and for that I apologize.
Much like any popular online destination, more people knowing about it stands to take away from its attraction to those seeking a specified, niche-type entity. And that new found popularity stands to take away from potentially uber-focused groups that, regardless of their willingness to purchase or view ads, are the best audience for some products or services.
In other words, while its expansion is great, it’s going to be flooded with the same people who are regulars on Friendster, MySpace, and other social networking locations. Where have all the niche websites gooooone.
I hope that made sense.
FB was a gated community previously. Now that the riff-raff has been admitted, and spam will inevitably seep into ‘notes’ ‘groups’ and ‘messages’ - there will definitely be a backlash. I think the true value of FB was in its .edu exclusivity.