Since the now famous Facebook IPO, there has been tremendous pressure on Facebook to provide more consistent value in the forms of revenue streams. Two things have happened in the last few weeks that should cause businesses and marketing managers either delight or fear.
1. Facebook announced Facebook Gifts.
Facebook users will be able to send birthday, holiday and other gifts. You know all those birthday reminders that pop up? Soon you will be able to click an icon or link next to the persons name and send a gift. A message can also be sent to the recipient’s Facebook Timeline or as a private message. The recipient of the gift enters his or her address, so the giver doesn’t have to worry about that.
A few thoughts on this. First WOW! - that could be supremely convenient for users. Two, what a powerful opportunity for Facebook to make huge amounts of money. Three, how impersonal. I want my friend to at least "think" I put some efforts into their gift. Four, out of my hundreds and hundreds of "friends" I only buy gifts for a few so frankly it's no big deal. Whatever your thoughts - this has potential to be huge and change the e-commerce landscape!
2. If your a Social Media Marketing Manager that pays any attention to stats you probably noticed post views declining in the last week or two. This seems to have happened the same time Facebook modified their Offers platform, eliminating the ability to post Offers for free. Also, this seems to have coincided with the whole "Fake Likes" "cleanup". I presume so that Facebook could basically explain to businesses the drop in post views has to do with many fake "likes" not that Facebook changed any algorithms or anything. Accessing the stats at Page Data, 14 of the top 30 brands and pages experienced negative growth in the past week.
It's clear that Facebook is reducing the ability to promote pages and brands on their platform without paying them to do so.
Where Facebook is going, how Facebook will look a year from now, and how businesses and consumers use and what they expect from Facebook will be completely different from today that much is clear. As a Social Media manager you need to think about your current strategy and how to adapt to maximize the new Facebook for your brand and business.
