Facebook – The World’s New Business Hub

Just how much time do you think an average teenager would spend on Facebook? An hour or so a day maybe? Or make that two hours? Well, you better think again!

A recent report from McAfee revealed that Indian teens spend a massive 86% of their time daily on Facebook followed by 54% on Twitter. Yes folks, gone are the days when teens spent their time on playgrounds or even playing videogames! As of now, Social media is the name of the game.

It comes as no surprise that every brand on the face of the earth would want to publicize their brands of the social media majors. With the brand recall that can be generated, it has become a platform that cannot be ignored. Infact, gone are the days when traditional media like TV/Print would be used to launch a product, quite recently a car manufacturer launched their hatchback using Facebook. Hmmm… Will it make the right impact? Quite obviously!

The report from McAfee also showed that 97% of teens have access to social network, while there is a growing digital divide between teens and their parents.

‘This divide is attributed to the fact that Indian teens are growing up as digital natives, with increasingly active online lives but lack of parental assistance’ – Survey

One of the main attributes for this has to be the link of applications on a smartphone. Yes yes, your reflex question might be – ‘Which 13-year-old uses a smartphone?’ – The answer – Almost half of them. The survey showed that nearly 45% of teens use a smartphone that has Facebook has an application & teens open their Facebook account at an average age of 13.

Between the fine print, this survey represents Facebook as a trusted brand amongst our teens. 89% teens believe social network is safe whereas parents (quite obviously) are less believing at 71%!

With such percentages, would you really not want to invest in probably the strongest marketing tool ever?!

Tags: business hub, facebook, facebook teens, social media, teens

Facebook – The New Media Time Machine

There has always been a time in everyone’s life which makes you think, ‘If only time machines were invented’.  The moment when your costly phone fell down, shattering to pieces or when you accidently sent an unwanted message to your teacher.  Between these moments you simply stand by wishing there was some way to turn time around. The situation is more pronounced in the world of media and communication where precision means business.  A simple misprint or Typo in your daily newspaper can turn Obama into Osama! Printing an apology or retraction in situations as these is inevitable. Even in the world of digital media such situations were considered to be very grave. A wrong news flash or e-mailer is considered detrimental for the rapport of the organization.

With Facebook slowly turning out to be an important factor in the world of media, commanding a reach which surpasses that of any other medium the risk of damage by any error would be huge. However thanks to its features of editing and scheduling posts, the risk has been minimized to a great extent.  Facebook can also be named as the new media time machine. Although organizations still need to be careful about what they share or update, the risk of mistake going viral is greatly diminished by its editing features. Facebook allows users to edit posts they have already made thus enabling them to correct errors. Any mistake corrected within few minutes of being posted is less likely to be viewed by a lot of people. In addition to this, the time on the comment is changed to correspond to most recent edit. However a friend or fan that originally received a notification about the post will not receive another notification about the edit.

Another unique feature of Facebook which has helped users master time is ‘Scheduling’. This allows users to schedule posts at a later date and time. Now you don’t need to log in from your vacation or during weekend to post a news or update. Just schedule all your posts in advance and forget about it. It also allows users to backdate a post.

Facebook is an important platform for brand management for companies. It gives them access to large number of viewers and great flexibility in terms of reach and audience. So it can prove detrimental for image of the brand if mistakes and errors are not taken care of before they go viral. These features of Facebook provide them breathing space to a certain extent giving them a certain level of control over actions of users.

With the world of social media becoming more complicated, what features are in store for us and how these changes are going to affect and revolutionize communication is yet to be speculated.

Tags: audience, band management, blunders, Brand image, editing, facebook, Facebook Advertising, Facebook Fans, facebook marketing, facebook timeline, media, reach, scheduling, social media, time machine, timeline

Big ‘B’ollywood in Facebook

Almost everybody you know is on Facebook. From your maternal uncle to your milkman. They are all hooked on to it.

But there is one section of the Indian market that has somehow managed to stray away from Facebook – Bollywood. Sure you will find tonnes of public figure pages, but none of them are really original. Believe me, you’ll take quite a lot of time to count the number of official pages Katrina Kaif has! And you can’t really blame them. With the amount of lewd comments a Sunny Leone photograph gets nowadays, they would better stray away!

But quite obviously, the temptation is too much. As we noticed this week, the Shehenshah of Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan decided to step into the fray. And quite like his stardom, his popularity is unmatched… a whopping 8 lakh fans in less than 30 minutes. A check right now showed 1.2 million fans with 204,335 talking about him… you need to gasp with that statistics for a page that is just a day old.

The page is adding at least 25,000 fans every hour since morning with no signs of slowing down. The team behind the page is updating the content frequently with his images, quotes etc.

All the 69-year-old megastar had to do was to provide information on his latest movies, a couple of pictures and voila…he is already a big success on this social media major! To give Big B credit, he isn’t new to socializing with his fans now is he? He has his own blog & constantly tweets on the latest happenings.

There isn’t a better way for the superstar to stamp his authority really. If you look at it, there is just another Bollywood star that has similar fan following. Who else? King Khan. He handles his official page with 2,848,864 followers and presently has 79,155 people talking about him. Ofcourse, this number is over a period of a year or so and frankly isn’t a match to what Big B will have in a year.

We have all seen the publicity stunts made by media houses to promote movies. Trailers, sneak peaks, contests, the list is endless. Production houses are keeping upto 10% of their marketing spends firmly for the online space. Surely an official superstar page can reap its benefits without spending anything.

If you think about it, there is no limit to the amount of activity that Big B can generate from this account. It’s possibly the easiest (&let’s not forget, free) way to promote any activity of his – from an advert commercial to a movie. And quite obviously, it might have been a massive pro to join the social networking major, especially with Kaun Banega Crorepati season 6 just around the corner. Over the years, the popularity of the show has gone down quite noticeably; might this be a smart revival in the happening? Only time will tell!

Now that this is a start for Bollywood on Facebook, who else will join the league? We’ll have to wait and watch!

Tags: amitabh bachchan, amitabh on facebook, big b, big b on facebook, celebs on facebook, kaun banega crorepati, KBC new season, srk on facebook

Announce your Pregnancy via Facebook

Facebook has evolved a lot ever since it came into existence. It continuously changes over time, trying to keep the users’ interest intact. It has always made sure that people do not get saturated or bored with what is there.

Life on Facebook, has become life on the whole! It helps people share things with each other – be it as simple as what you did during the weekend, what you had for breakfast in the morning or news such as getting a huge appraisal at work! And ofcourse, you can add life to the news by sharing pictures of all the important events in their life.

Making announcements on Facebook was never difficult. With just a click of a button, you could tell the entire world about the important event that happened in your life. If you started a brand new relationship or just ended one, if you are engaged or married, if you are moving in to a new city – you can let the whole world know!

And now, to add to this, the new announcement you can make is to tell the whole world that you are expecting your little bundle of joy!

Facebook launches a new Timeline event that lets you share the news of your pregnancy with all your ‘friends’!

You can add information such as the expected due date, and whether it’s a boy or girl. You can add additional info like who the other parent is, location of where the baby will be born and a detailed story as well.

Baby announcements appear in the Celebrations home page sidebar. You can also set a future publishing date if you want to wait a while before making the announcement. Also, you can add a photo to the story. Once published, the story will appear in the news feed immediately for all your friends to see.

This new life event for expecting a baby also opens up new advertising opportunities for brands. Brands now have a new ad targeting option of “expecting parents”.

Brands that have new born related products now have the ability to accurately target expected parents with ads for maternity clothes, parenting classes, strollers, and anything else someone needs to be a mom or dad.

Now with this new feature available on Facebook, you need not have to wait for your baby to be born to announce it to the entire world…you can make this important time of your life, part of your ‘Timeline’ as well!

Photography on Facebook

Ever since cameras were discovered, photos and photography has always caught people’s fancy. Whether it is to face the camera and pose for photos or stay behind them and make the magic happen, everyone is amazed with photography!

When facebook came along a few years ago, photography was already a big part of everyone’s life. People loved the idea of capturing their life with the help of a simple camera and store it for years to come.

With the birth of this social media giant, people could not have been happier. They started sharing the most important parts of their lives, all the memories and the special moments with their friends and family via this platform. It was definitely the easiest and fastest way for people to connect.

Ofcourse, there were several picture sharing sites such as Flickr, Shutterfly, Picassa that already existed and it was the best known way to share these pictures. But with everyone soon being on facebook, it was just easier and more convenient for people to share pictures here. And it is no surprise that these picture sharing sites are faced with a huge battle ahead of them!

Sharing pictures on Facebook soon became a way of life! Everyone wanted their friends and family to be a part of their life. They wanted to share those special moments of their life with their loved ones. And owing to the features available on Facebook, these pictures got ‘likes’ and ‘comments’.

So, when a person published a picture on Facebook, they wanted to make sure they get the most ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ from all their friends. Every picture people clicked went up on Facebook. Each picture more attractive than the previous.

Facebook Timeline has several features and options. Every profile has a Profile Picture and a Cover Photo. So it does not come as a surprise that people tried to put up the most attractive, one-of-a-kind picture to be appreciated by everyone!

Every single moment of life goes up on their wall. Be it as simple as just going out for a walk or dining at the new restaurant that just opened in town. All the family trips, the fun you have in the college canteen after bunking a class, all the nights you go out with your friends and not to mention few of the most important moments in life – proposing to the love of your life and the magical moment when you marry them, the very first picture of your child, and several others.

It has come to a stage where people do not take pictures for the same reasons as earlier. They are not just taken for the sake of capturing the beautiful moments of life… It is not taken only as a memory. It is taken to be shown off on Facebook! The thought that quickly runs through your mind after a taking a picture is – is this picture good enough to be my new profile picture?!

Tags: cover photo, Facebook Comments, Facebook Fans, Facebook friends, Facebook likes, facebook photos, profile picture

Music on Facebook

Facebook which started out just a simple social networking site soon had several features to it. One such feature that was made available recently was listening to Music with your friends on facebook.

Everyone loves to listen to music. Be it when you are happy or when you are sad, music is always the best companion. You always find the right kind of music to define the mood you are in or it can be even be the other way round where the music you listen to defines the mood you are in.

Friends are usually the only ones that you would love to share your mood or feelings with. What can be better than combining the two and making friends a part of the music you listen to?

Music is one of the most powerful and fun ways to connect. Whether it’s at a concert with a bunch of people or on a long drive with your best buddy, you love listening to music with your friends. But what if you could listen to music with your friends when you’re alone, like at work, at home or on the go?

Now, with the music feature on Facebook, there is a new way to listen with friends. This feature lets you listen to the music of your choice with any of your friends who are currently listening to music. You can listen to music with a single friend or a group of them.

You also have an option to chat with your friends about what you’re listening to. As others start listening along, they will join the chat as well. You also have an option of controlling who you’re listening along with, with your settings.

Before you can listen to music with your friends, you need to allow the music apps you use to add your listening activity on your timeline.

If your friends also allow music apps to publish their listening activity on their timeline, you will see a next to their name in the chat sidebar when they’re listening to music. You might also see a story in the ticker that says your friend is listening to a song.

To listen with a friend,

-         Hover over their name in the chat sidebar or the story in ticker

-         Click the Listen With (friend’s name) button that appears

-         If you haven’t already opened the same music service provider as your friend, click the Open button on the next window

Right now, you can only listen with friends on Spotify or Rdio. If you don’t have either of these music providers, you can sign up after you click the Listen With (friend’s name) button.

Now, you can experience enjoying music together with your friends no matter where you are. Enjoy sharing this part of your life with your friends as well!

Tags: Facebook friends, facebook listen button, facebook music, music apps

If Brands had a Payment Gateway on Facebook

Facebook now probably has all possible features you can think of. From the basics like having people on your friends list, sharing pictures, updating your status messages to even video chatting.

Facebook is also one of the most important social media sites for marketing brands and products. It has over 4 million businesses present on it, selling products, marketing and building their fan base.

Statistics show that an average facebook user likes around 80 pages. But, this is not the limit…a person can like upto 5000 pages!

When we consider an average person, who likes 80 pages, the amount of time he spends on Facebook is enormous! He is logged into facebook for atleast an hour a day!

While on facebook, the first thing everyone does is to check their wall – all the status updates from their friends and the brand pages they like. They probably even update their own status messages, upload pictures, look up about their friends and even visit the brand pages they really like.

Now when there is so much to do on facebook, the only reason that a person would log out of it is because they have other things to take care of. Things like making payments, shopping online, etc. Just because they log out of facebook, it does not mean they are not online anymore. People spend a good couple of hours on the internet.

You have several e-commerce websites that people also look into everyday as well. There are many interesting things that people find on them and buy. People even complete simple tasks such as ordering food online.

Now when there is already so much on facebook, imagine if it could be enhanced a little more. Imagine if many other features available on other websites were rolled into it as well…

For example, if there was a way that you could place an order for that pizza with special jalapeno toppings from a Pizza Hut or a Dominos while you were on Facebook itself. It would cut those extra few clicks and the extra couple of minutes that you need to log in to their websites and place your order.

Even with almost all brands, especially all e-commerce ones, existing on Facebook, it would be so much simpler if there was a way that all the features available on their websites be available on Facebook itself. Features such as going through all the products of the brand, selecting the items of your choice and even making payments for them directly via Facebook itself.

In this way, you would not have to log in to the different brands’ websites that you like separately. Since you are on Facebook and you would have invariably liked the brand pages you like, it would make life so much simpler if you could find all features of the website with just a click of a button. It saves a lot of time and in this way, you would even be spending a lot of time on Facebook itself. You would not have to cut short a conversation with a friend or have to remind yourself to go through your friends’ photos later…you can do it all at one place. Facebook will become your one stop solution for all your online needs!

Tags: facebook shopping, Fcebook brands

Scheduling Posts on Facebook

Being active on social media sites is the top priority for several brands at present. It is not the most important way to market a brand or products. It is probably the best way to reach out to customers.

And when a brand is on a social media site like facebook, the first thing they do is develop a fan base for their page. Next, to make full use of their presence, brands engage with customers on a daily basis.

Engaging with your fan base can be very tricky. You need to be careful about what you do and what you say. Even the language you use is important. You need to be at the top of your game when it comes to engaging with your customers.

Once you start engaging with your fan base or customers on a daily basis, you need to ensure you give them something for them to look forward to. You need to entertain them and at the same time educate them well about your brand and products.

Engagement is usually done on a daily basis and it is a good idea to put up 2-3 posts every day. You also need to constantly monitor the posts you have put up and attend to the comments or queries your audience has.

Weekdays or weekends, your posts should be up on the page. You cannot afford to take a day off…especially during the weekends.

But let’s face it…everyone needs a day off!

Especially for such situations, you have an option of scheduling your posts. You have several sites/tools which help you schedule posts with the content of your choice and for the time or day of your choice. Your content will be automatically posted on your page.

But with all these tools, the major drawback was the number of posts that could be scheduled.

If you are going out on a vacation and do not want your page to suffer because of it or if the timing of your posts is not very social-friendly, you need to have an option to schedule them. And this cannot be an everyday activity in times like this.

Now with the new feature on Facebook, which gives you an option of scheduling posts, your life can be a lot easier.

There is no cap on the number of posts you can schedule for your page. You can schedule posts for the next couple of days or months or even for the year to come.

If you want to schedule a post for the next month, it is not a must that you have to schedule all posts up until that particular day or month. You can schedule posts only on the days of your choice.

With this new feature on Facebook, you also have an option to post on the days already passed by. You can put up posts for the previous couple of days or even the past year.

Engaging fans and posting for your page on Facebook has never been this simple!

Tags: Facebook Comments, Facebook Engagement, Facebook Fans, Facebook likes, Facebook Pages, Facebook Posts, Page Engagement, Page likes

How do you decide whether to like a page or not?

Facebook now probably has more than a million brands present on it. The reason behind a brands existence on Facebook is purely for marketing purposes. They like to connect with people on a more personal level and get to know what works and what doesn’t with the audience. Not to forget, they are there to prove their credibility!

When a brand exists on facebook, they will make the most of their existence by creating a fan base of audience related to their brand and also engage them on a daily basis. The more the number of fans and the more they engage with fans, the more virality and credibility the brand builds.

So when it comes to liking a brand, how do you decide? How do you know you want to like the brand page or not? Is it because you like a single product they sell? Is it because all your friends like it? Or is it simply because you like the name of the brand?

Before liking a brands’ page on Facebook, you need to be sure you like the page for all the right reasons!

Never like a page because you like a single product that the brand has come with. Also, never go with what the ‘trend’ is! You can be faithful to a brand, but it does not mean you have to like their page on facebook as well!

Before liking a page, do some basic research:

- Go through the details of the brand page. See the kind of products the brand has. Ensure the products the brand comes up with are of use to you and you can see yourself using them at some point or the other.

- Review the page and see how they engage with their audience. How frequently they post on the page, the kind of posts they put up and if it is relevant to you or not. It should not be such that they put up 5-6 posts a day and your ‘wall’ looks spammed by their posts!

- Also see the tabs/applications and the contests the brand comes up with. It should be exciting contests, the kinds that you would love to take part in!

When you like a page on facebook, it should be of real interest to you. It should have interesting posts and comments that keep you glued to the brand. It should not be such that, seeing the page and the kind of engagement they conduct, you finally lose interest in the products and the brand itself!

Tags: Facebook Fans, Facebook like, Facebook Page, Fan Pages, Page likes

The Games We Play!

Facebook, the place for networking, where people used to only meet and catch up with people soon became something a lot more than that!

I mean, what more could you have asked for? You were happy just being ‘friends’ with classmates from high school, whom you probably saw after 10 years, your friends from college or your distant relative!

You have people from all walks of life as ‘friends’ on your Facebook page. You were satisfied with just updating your status or sharing photos.

But soon, it turned out to be a place for wholesome entertainment! Companies like Zynga, made the best of the huge number of people that were a part of this social networking site by developing games solely for them!

The first game that came out on facebook was Farmville. Each player had a virtual farm to take care for. Much like the real world, they had to plow the land, sow seeds, water them for them to grow and reap the benefits by harvesting them. And not to forget, there were farm animals you could benefit out of as well!

People were so addicted to the game, that the used to ensure they log in daily and harvest their plants so that they do not die. They used to lose sleep over it as well! It became a virtual force to reckon with, with over 11 million users daily.

Once they saw the success of this game, and before people lost interest, they developed several other interesting games as well. Be it Cityville, Fishville or Castleville.

Soon, all sorts of games came on to facebook. All games people loved playing became a part of facebook as well!

Angry Birds, which started out as a mobile application and was one of the most enjoyed and competitive games, was also available on Facebook.

Many other games like Mafia Wars, Poker, Bejeweled, Texas Holdem and many more followed suit as well. At present there are hundreds of games available on Facebook.

And what’s more? You are not only entertained, you also have an option to compete with your friends!

The whole idea behind it is to ensure people spend a lot more time on their Facebook page (although it isn’t really required!). To keep people entertained and addicted to it.

They wanted Facebook to be the one stop shop for entertainment…And it has definitely been that!

Tags: Angry Birds, Castlelville, Cityville, Facebook games, Farmville, Fishville, Games on Facebook, Mafia Wars, Texas Holdem, Zynga