March 23rd 2012
As Facebook gears up for one of the largest IPO’s in the technology space in recent years, its online revenue model launches some new gadgets for marketers to utilize. I recently read an article that speculated on the fact that Facebook’s online marketing revenue model was slowly becoming a smaller percentage of total revenue. However, soon the world will be able to see for them selves how much of that speculation is reality. Despite this fact, Facebook’s online marketing direction is starting to integrate with the types of content users engage with the most. At the company’s marketing conference in New York, here is what they proposed is new for Facebook:
The Reach Generator:
In order for this tool to work, a brand must have a certain number of fans (this number is still undetermined). When the company posts a few times a week, (# also undetermined) Facebook guarantees that these posts will reach 75% of the brand’s fans each month. This is not a free tool so marketers should be careful to determine the long term ROI. This means that Facebook will have to offer some of the Google AdWord analytics such as an impression based system. Strategically, companies who are thinking of using this tool should analyze whether the information they are posting is relevant in order to eventually generate higher sales.
New Products:
- Premium display ads on the logout page- to date I have seen the Bing search engine and an Axe body spray commercial appear on the Facebook log out page.
- Sponsored stories in the news feed on mobile devices
- Offers- ability for businesses to share discounts and promotions directly from a Facebook page.
These new products that Facebook are proposing are part of a larger trend to merge all of the sites content. Their goal is to eliminate the distinctions between the various types of content. Despite introducing the sponsored stories that show up on mobile devices, the company has been extremely conservative on their mobile presence. Many of their users are logging on to their personal pages through their mobile phone, however the problem exists of monetizing this channel. I think this poses one of Facebook’s major concerns and we can expect to see further updates and improvements related to their mobile marketing revenue.