I was recently asked by the Techdirt Insight group to respond to a request for opinions on using Facebook as a platform for introducing a new ad-supported, web-based service. Here’s my thoughts on this now that they have announced the Facebook platform strategy:
“I asked myself the same question. I’m a 52 year old white male so I have not been their target market. After they announced their platform strategy I went and opened a Facebook account and invited my gmail contacts (nice automated process for that). I was curious whether my circle of friends would respond, have Facebook accounts, send messages, etc. The results surprised me. Several people went and registered with Facebook and sent me messages. Several more already had pages. The response was stronger than if I had simply sent them an email requesting feedback.
If you know anything about viral, you know that it is a double-edged sword. If people detect the slightest hint of bulls**t they will crucify you and it can take place in a very public manner (blogosphere anyone?). We are constantly asked about viral marketing by clients who uniformly believe it is a low budget, ‘guerilla’ tactic. It is not, in fact it can be very costly and very risky. That’s why Facebook intrigues me. It probably offers the ultimate viral opportunity right now if you get it right.
Let’s look at what that might involve. First of all, forget the ads at the beginning. There is almost universal agreement that you build your base before monetizing these days. The logic is that if you offer a truly compelling product that people use and recommend they won’t mind the addition of ads later on. Using advertising from day one will cause a lot of potential users to tune you out without trying the service.
Second, using Facebook for its huge audience is a good strategy but you have to execute flawlessly. This means understanding, at a deep level, how people use Facebook and why they recommend things to others. You have to get into the ecosystem and do your homework. Have everyone you know join Facebook and then look and see how many add widgets and which ones they use regularly, recommend, etc.
Design your widget based on that research, being merciless in paring features and delivering a very strong core service. Don’t waste any time planning upgrades, ‘premium’ services, etc. Focus on delivering something great that works and is attractive enough for people to enthusiastically recommend to their friends. That is, IMHO, the key to taking advantage of a platform like this. ”
For a really fascinating piece on what Facebook is doing (warning, has technical stuff in it) read Marc Andreessen’s blog post on Facebook. BTW, Marc, who built Netscape among other things, has what may be the best new blog out there for tech start-ups- and the fastest growing one in terms of readership.
I thought this was an interesting post. Being that I just graduated from college, I used Facebook on a regular basis. I am currently interning over in Account Services, if you want to learn more about Facebook & how the actual target market uses & respond to it, drop me a line & we will chat!
The most interesting thing Facebook has launched recently is the application platform. I think there’s a great opportunity here to build some tools that people actually want and can use. Any business that is targeting individuals in the Facebook community could easily create an application-even one that isn’t directly related to their product-that ties into the ‘culture’ of their brand.
Secondly, Facebook groups are a great way to build a community. People will join any group with a clever title or amusing angle—I see dozens of the ’100,000 members in a week’ variety everyday. Morph this into a giveaway or a contest and soon you’ve got a huge group of people who have opted into receiving communications regarding any number of things (postings to the group boards will appear on each member’s homepage). It’s a great new way of creating a mailing list in effect. As long as you don’t subvert member’s expectations of what they’ve signed up for.
Read that linked post from Marc Andreessen. iLike grew so fast on the Facebook platform that they almost went under. They had to borrow hundreds of servers from other businesses to stay online because their widget went viral really fast (like millions of users overnight).
What they have done is revolutionary- it may change the web.
It’ll be interesting to see what MySpace does in response.