Living and dying with Facebook :

Opportunity for marketers

If someone inquires about partner in life you would wonder by listening to a reply like 'Facebook' (FB)! But that is reality.Now FB can be considered as one of the household product in Sri Lanka. (But keep in your mind our literacy rate is still 25 percent). Up to December 2011, 845 million monthly active users can be seen in FB in globe.

See following facts on FB (this is increasing day by day).

1. FB is now used by 1 in every 13 people on earth

2. The average user has about 130 friends. And interestingly there was a research done by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, with a population of 2,255 FB users over a one-month period in United States (US). It has found the average person has 245 FB friends, but the average friend of that person has 359 FB friends!

3. Forty eight percent of 18-34 year olds check FB when they wake up with 28 percent doing so before even getting out of bed.

4. The 35+ demographic is growing rapidly, now with over 30 percent of the entire FB user base.

5. In just 20 minutes on FB over one million links are shared, two million friend requests are accepted and almost three million messages are sent.

Above trends will enlighten us on how people in the world are obsessed with FB. In Sri Lanka we have 1.2 million FB users. In the world Sri Lanka ranked 75th out of 213 countries (socialbakers.com). It means 6 percent of total population and 69 percent of online population are with FB. But India ranked as world number two in FB usage only has a penetration of 4 percent from their total population and 54 percent of online population.

This will give us a better idea of higher penetration of FB in Sri Lanka than India. On this 74 percent are in the age category of 18-34. So marketers who are promoting products and services for youngsters should think this as an opportunity to promote their products. If we talk about gender, still FB is male dominant (67 percent male and 33 percent female) in Sri Lanka.

This is same in India (73 percent vs 27 percent).But different in US (58 percent female and 42 percent male) as well as United Kingdom (UK) (55 percent female and 45 percent male). Is that culture sensitive? This will be a good research topic in social research.

The demographic data of age and gender will guide marketers to analyse and segment the market. It is important to promote your product using FB.

We can see some companies already in the fray including politicians in elections. What about global trends? Advertisement (Ad) revenue from social networks worldwide is expected to reach $5.54 billion by 2012, according to eMarketer estimates, and will double by 2013.

The majority of this ad revenue is coming from FB, which is expected to pull in over $3.8 billion by 2012 from advertising to its 845 million members.

Advertising in social media like FB will be effective. But you need to prepare for this, and also you need creativity. Assume you hire 100 people who have 300 friends each to post an ad on their walls. See the exposure. It is 300,000!

Is advertising on social media only effective for large corporations? No it is very much effective for small businesses as well.

According to the USA Today report that the national franchise Smashburger (in US), a company that, since 2007, has grown from three Denver locations to 150 branches across US.

The report says that a strong FB presence is among the most crucial factors in Smashburger's success. If you are a small businessman who is targeting a niche market, then FB should be the best option to get competitive advantage in the market.

Some say FB is bad specially once you get addicted. But in the eyes of marketing it is good as long as you get more customers while maximizing the wealth of your shareholders.