John Bell has a very interesting blog entry on what should come next after being present in Facebook.
He talks about the fast growth - and then slowdown - of Facebook adoption in the US, a trend that most people (including techwatchers and stock/financial market analysts interested in the Facebook IPO) thought was the beginning of the end of Facebook (and its billion-dollar valuation).
Bell differs - and I agree with him: something cannot keep on growing forever, specially if there is a 'built-in braking system' in its growth trajectory. Sooner or later, everyone is going to have one Facebook account - until we reach that point where there's no one else to recruit into the Facebook population.
Instead of questioning whether this is the end of Facebook, the question marketeers and communication strategists need to answer is "now what?"
Bell offers several thoughts:
1. Integrating Facebook as part of an overall customer/fan relationship management solution
2. Figuring out how to make social commerce work for the brand
3. More data about the brands' followers and fans (as soon as Facebook unlocks the data-vaults)
4. Creating new ways to engage and entertain and delight audiences and brand fans and loyalists through Facebook's unique platform (and other social media's)
5. Integration of Facebook into CRM legacy systems
I will add a few more to Mr. Bell's thoughts:
1. Having a clear role for Facebook and other social-media platforms, both digital and non-digital, in the marketing communications mix and in the customer engagement strategy of a firm
2. Identifying the real returns in financial value of activities in Facebook, other digital social-media platforms, and other "traditional, non-digital" social-media platforms, using metrics and currencies that are comparable to how we measure returns for TV, press, magazines, outdoor, and radio
3. Going beyond using Facebook and other digital social media platforms as "crisis portenders" or "PR-nightmare forerunners" - but using these and other non-digital platforms as "sources of brand/product and communication innovations".
What do you think? How else can Facebook be used in building your brands and your brands' businesses? How can it be a part of a profit improvement program for a company?
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