Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
claimed on Monday: one in seven people on Earth used Facebook – 1 billion
people. One day perhaps seven out of seven people might be hooked on to it. It
is a unique revolution dominating people’s relationships, privacy, businesses, news
media, helping topple regimes and even changing the meaning of everyday words
(like ‘to friend’ or ‘not to defriend’!).
Today, Facebook makes news, breaks
news and decides what is news. This platform allows anyone to have hundreds, or
even thousands of ‘friends’, get their ‘likes’, their comments. One can be ‘friend’
to many whom one might not have met before, and can just pull the plug anytime to
defriend without any adverse fall out.
People are willing to share their
personal details: their ages, images, places where they live, e-mail addresses,
their interests and their general profile. All this is indeed a minefield of
data for the brand builders to target their potential customers in a more
focused and fruitful manner.
While Facebook itself earned more
than $ 3.32 billion in ad revenue last year, its tools have created millions of
jobs which help businesses, political groups, media groups in understanding the
pulse of the people, likely consumer trend, how their branding efforts could
yield best results, bringing in more
profits, influences and ‘likings’. The data and analytics available through
Facebook are extraordinary to all interest groups.
In fact, as is being reported
widely, Facebook will continue to boom. There are hundreds of agencies which exist
specifically for social media. It’s an entire ecosystem for media, marketing,
sales and technology. Facebook has some challenging questions how to handle this
all important tool in the best interests of individuals and groups. It has
become viral now and would need close responsible monitoring to prevent its
abuse or misuse by anyone, whether political parties, businesses or media
groups.
Like spreading Arab spring and
creating political upheavals elsewhere, Facebook will need to evolve into a
responsible global player, always fair and objective, following the best
interests of freedom of speech, human rights and democratic principles.
As a small business in manufacturing
and distributing herbal beauty products, Herbally Radiantwww.herballyradiant.com has to follow the
trend in cosmetics industry which increasingly depends upon the social media.
Facebook allows Herbally Radiant to reach out to larger sections of potential
customers. After analyzing the need for
genuine natural antiaging skin care formulations, it was able to launch its top
of the range products: RADIANT and REJUVENATING, and following the growing
number of customers with skin allergy, including acne problems, Herbally
Radiant was able to launch its most popular range “CLEAN” to provide the best
formulations for these specific customers.
At Herbally Radiant we find Facebook
an increasingly powerful tool, both to reach out to existing and prospective
customers with new products as also to analyze the reviews and ‘likes’ of its
Facebook page.