Australia: Facebook for Business

I was cleaning out my Inbox (anything rather than write a report that has to be in today, or clean the house) and came across this from Sep 2006. I had notes which add up to: Hmmm, Facebook… could be huge but not sure if Australia will get it. *rolls eyes*

Facebook Opens Enrollment To Everyone

by Shankar Gupta, Tuesday, Sep 12, 2006 6:00 AM ET

FACEBOOK.COM, WHICH BUILT ITS USER base by creating a community for only college students, will soon open its gates to all Web users, the company said Monday. The social networking site will create 500 regional U.S. networks, and will allow Web users not affiliated with schools to sign up for the site and join as a regional member, said a company spokeswoman. College students with a valid .edu e-mail address will still be in their own networks. The widening of the network is the latest in a more gradual expansion of the site beyond its college roots. Last fall, the site created networks for high schools around the country–and in May, the site began creating networks for certain businesses, nonprofits, and governmental organizations. Each network requires an e-mail address from that organization to allow the user to access profiles of others in the network.

Gee, I’m glad they did a gradual expansion. Especially since F8 (the Facebook developer platform) launched in May this year *end sarcasm.

Facebook says that (today) 1,212, 756 had proactively chosen to join the Australia network (you can join a regional network e.g. Australia or Sydney, there’s also corporate networks like Telstra and Cisco). It’s a way of Swarming together. Tribal badging. And so on…

One reason you join a social network has to do with being able to see Events: 261 events in the network today. Birthdays, picnics, Christmas parties (of course), educational lectures, a CD launch, poetry slam and so on. I wonder if the Community Colleges will get on there with their evening courses?

But the real number of Australians on Facebook is (today) 1, 915, 460 – right on target for my prediction of 10% of the Australian population on FB by Christmas. And remember: 93% Facebook users log in once a month. 62% log in daily. Can you afford NOT to be there?

What is niche marketing by the way, and what is mass? Not quite as obvious is it? And Facebook is…?

I tried to put in Australia, female, Britney Spears (interests) and cricket in the keywords targeted ad section but got AJAX errors. Yuck.

Facebook ad serving is different from Google.

Google ads are about context. The keywords tell the company what the searcher is searching for. So I could put into Google search engine “car, new, red, good radio, Paramatta” and it will have a guess that I am going to buy a new car in the West of Sydney and deliver ads appropriately. However it knows nothing about my demographic. Male or Female? Young or old? Rich or Poor? WHO AM I?
Facebook ads are about profile. I’ve handed over the information above. My gender, my interests, my age, my location. The search and delivery of advertisements becomes specific. It’s just such a shame that social search in Facebook is crap. You try buying a red car with a good radio in the radius of Sydney! Marketplace is crap. Shouldn’t it be well integrated? Only I’m not sure I want to buy cars from friends. They get kinda cranky when you point out that only the radio is still working, six months later.

So what does it mean to businesses? Besides the fact that a lot of eyeballs have shifted to social networks, dunno. But look for signs: there are things like CRM in Facebook starting to hit the web-o-sphere (from Microsoft Dynamics) – just another Facebook cowboy development group? 😛

Integrating CRM 4.0 Contacts with Facebook

CRM stores information about your contacts. Facebook also stores information about contacts. Let’s merge the two entities together so you can view Facebook profiles from within a CRM entity page! When we are done, our contact entity page will be able to do the following:

Click to get a bigger picture then look at the bar on the left. All the things you usually see in a Customer Relationship Management system.

Did you know you can pay for events, courses, seminars, whatever in Facebook now, with paypal?

Oh gosh, what do I know? remember? I opened this post with Hmmm, Facebook, could be huge but not sure if Australia will get it. Don’t listen to me.