Facebook

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Facebook is a social networking service where users can join different networks organized by school, workplace, city, and region to connect with other people. Facebook is free to sign up for and use. It was launched on February 4th, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook was originally intended for Harvard students, but the popularity of Facebook quickly grew and Zuckerberg recruited his friends Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz to help expand the business. Within 4 months Facebook had added 40 more colleges to it’s network. The original idea for the term Facebook came from Zuckerberg’s high school where they actually passed around a physical book to get to know the other classmates. Zuckerberg decided to bring Facebook to the internet. In mid 2004 Friendster offered to purchase Facebook for $10 milion but Facebook refused. In September 2005 they opened the network to high school students and added the picture sharing feature the next month.[1] Later they opened up to over 20,000 work networks and by September 2006 had opened up to anyone with an email address.[2]

1 Facebook Pages
2 Facebook Advertisements
3 Groups
4 Events
5 Applications
6 International
7 Time line
8 References

Facebook Pages

Although Facebook started out as a purley social network, more and more users are finding new ways to incorporate Facebook into their company. Facebook Pages are publicly viewable, which makes them convenient for businesses. People are making pages for restaurants, stores, parks, attractions, artists, musicians, politicians, special interest groups, shows, products and nonprofit organizations. Anyone can become a fan of your company’s page without the need for approval. Facebook Pages are similar to personal profile pages, but with information that is geared toward companies rather than individuals. Personal profile pages consist mainly of education, work information and personal interests. Public pages are centered around company aspects such as location, hours of operation, company overview, mission, date founded, and any additional information the company chooses to provide. Fans can post comments add pictures and video, and post links for others.[3]

Facebook Advertisements

When making a Facebook Page you can reach a very wide audience, but if you want you can target a more specific audience. To bring more traffic to your page you can pay for a Facebook Advertisement. You can narrow your search of Facebook users and have your ad appear on the home pages of the users you choose. It allows you to change the demographics of your ads to find a specific target market. You may want your ads directed towards men between the ages of 20 and 45 who live in Seattle. Or maybe you want to target all women in Washington between the ages of 18 and 25. Facebook will then calculate the number of people you will reach based on your criteria. Creating a Facebook Page is free but you do have to pay for an ad. You can set a limit on the amount you want to pay and the duration of your ad. There are guidelines to Facebook Advertising provided online.[4]

Groups

Many people have used Facebook groups for social reasons such as a sharing a favorite movie or to root for a local sports team or the ever classic “I lost my phone…need everyone’s numbers again,” but many users are now making groups centered around a business. A bar owner may want to create a Facebook group open to anyone to create a buzz. The group he creates will allow people to share comments and post pictures. The group age can inform members of an upcoming event or drink special and provide links to other websites.[5]

Events

A very popular aspect of Facebook is the events feature. A page for an upcoming event can be created and other users can be invited. Many people will create an event page for their friends birthday party. They can then provide the time, place, what to bring, and invite any one they wish. People who are invited can indicate if they will be able to attend or not. A lot of charity events are set up this way. Businesses are also taking advantage of this feature to inform people of a special event that they don’t want people to miss. The event feature is similar to the group feature but much more specific to the one specific event. Businesses will use this feature to create a page specifically for the one event that they have planned and unlike the group page, when the event is over the page will no longer be used.[6]

Applications

Facebook offers many applications that serve many different purposes. Some applications better suit the functions and needs of a business.[7]

Polls

Facebook polls allow marketers to collect information about Facebook users from different demographics. Polls can also be useful for getting information on potential applications or features they would like to implement.

Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect enables businesses to integrate their website with Facebook. They can integrate Facebook into their login process, retrieve users’ friend information, and post information back to users’ Mini Feed.

Telephone

With Telephone you are able to call, send and receive voice messages through Facebook. It works the same way the voicemail on your phone does. To send voice messages via Facebook all you need is the telephone application and a microphone and you can start.

Slideshare

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. Businesses are able to upload their own PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote or PDF files and view presentations posted by others. This is a great way to spread thought leadership and expertise through presentations you may have delivered locally.

Circle Up

Circle Up is a lightweight collaboration application for groups and events. This tool uses some of the communication needed to promote your group activity and events on Facebook and other places. This is very useful if you’ve you already have created and maintain your own group on Facebook or you often promote teleseminars and workshops.

Calliflower

Calliflower allows a business to organize a meeting on the go. With free conference call you can call in from anywhere; your home, mobile, Skype, or any VoIP service.

Facebook Video

Facebook Video provides a high-quality video platform for people and pages on Facebook. With Video, business owner can upload video files, send video from his or her mobile phone, and record video messages. This application is very easy to use and makes sending video introductions or messages a useful and powerful way to network on Facebook.

Testimonials

Testimonials can be used to gather personal and professional references in one place. This encourages customers and contacts to post testimonials about your business and adds great marketing content for your business.

Introductions

Introductions allows you to make introductions to different clients or whoever you need to. You can ask for an introduction to a web programmer or supplier. Then make introductions for your friends and colleagues. The Introductions application speeds the process of networking by helping focus on giving and receiving introductions in a systematic way.

Business Cards

The Business Cards applications can really help a business network better on Facebook. You are able to personalize your card and then attach it to your Facebook messages. You can also view postings and network with others. This application is much like the signature common in email messages.

My LinkedIn Profile

My LinkedIn Profile makes it easy to promote your LinkedIn account with a badge on your Facebook profile. Cross promoting social networks is an effective way to extend your reach.

What I Do

The What I Do applications allows a business to promote their products and services to it’s Facebook network. You can also display individual skills on your profile box and list yourself in a business directory. It gives you the chance to recommend your colleagues services and products as well.

International

Facebook is the second most-trafficked PHP site in the world, and one of the largest MySQL installations anywhere, running thousands of databases. Facebook Platform is a development platform that enables companies and engineers to integrate with the Facebook website and gain access to millions of users. This allows users from around the globe to share, meet and interact. Millions of people around the world use Facebook providing a huge distribution potential for applications and the opportunity to build a successful business. With over 850 employees, Facebook now has headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. U.S. offices: Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Detroit, New York; Venice Beach, Calif. International offices: Dublin, Ireland; London; Paris, and is now available in more than 40 translations including Afrikaans, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), English (UK), Filipino, Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian (Norway), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Europe), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Spanish (Castile), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh.[8]