Can Facebook turn 800m users into a $100bn business?

It’s said that Facebook could be worth $100bn if, as widely predicted, it floats on the stock market next year.

That would make it as valuable as Amazon (in business since 1995) and McDonald’s (1940) and twice as valuable as Tesco (1929). But Facebook was launched a mere seven years ago, by then college student Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard friends.

Can a $100bn business have been created so fast? It may sound incredible, but there are reasons why Facebook just might be worth that much.

If you look after the pennies…

First, Google – now worth around $200bn – set a new model for Silicon Valley when it went public in 2004, the year Facebook was founded. It built a global audience before working out how to make money, proving that if you can attract a big enough audience, there will always be ways to “monetise”. Ad revenue per user can be tiny and still add up to huge figures. So Facebook’s current 800 million users are an extraordinarily valuable asset.

And Facebook has a couple of trump cards over Google. It’s the ultimate “sticky” site, with users spending much longer on it per session – about 30 minutes on average – than people do on Google. That’s more time to see and respond to ads.

Everything Facebook is doing to develop as a business, such as the forthcoming personal Timelines, is designed to get people even more hooked.

Zuckerberg says its all about giving users better things to do. “We’re not trying to make it so that people spend a lot more time on Facebook,” he said. “We want to make it so the time you spend on Facebook is so valuable that you want to keep on coming back every day.”

Knowing you

Another key advantage is that while Google often doesn’t know much about its users, Facebook is a treasure trove of personal information. Unlike Google, you can’t use Facebook without logging on; and the only point of doing so is to talk about yourself and share your interests.

That makes it, in the words of Facebook chronicler David Kirkpatrick, “probably the most valuable market research tool that’s ever existed”. It gives advertisers the chance to target exactly the kinds of people they want to reach. So if you’re selling a product to women who are about to get married, when you place an ad you can click the “engaged” tag, and “women” and only show the ad to brides-to-be.

Zuckerberg himself has always been reluctant to allow intrusive ads – so much so that in the early days Facebook ads sat below a cheeky caption that read: “We don’t like these either, but they pay the bills.”

Today Facebook hopes that offering ads which users are more likely to be interested in will mitigate the intrusion. And when friends are drawn into the process with what Facebook calls “social ads”, perhaps ads will become not just acceptable, but even welcome.

If it’s a choice between a straight ad for a product, and a social ad that tells you that one of your friends likes the product, Zuckerberg asks, “which do you think people who use Facebook prefer? They want to learn about what their friends are doing.”

Generating demand

For Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer and effectively Zuckerberg’s number two, Facebook has already found its own niche, avoiding direct competition for ad revenue with her former employer, Google.

Sandberg distinguishes between demand fulfilment ads – Google’s speciality – and demand generation ads, which she sees as Facebook’s strength. She cites TV ads as an example of the latter. You aren’t asked to go and buy something immediately; rather you are introduced to new products and ideas. ”Part of the challenge in moving dollars online is that the demand generation dollars have not moved online as effectively,” Ms Sandberg says, “and that is 90% of a $650bn industry.”

Commercial peril

Not everyone is convinced: Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising giant WPP warns that Facebook is “a social network, not a commercial network. And therefore you use it commercially at your peril.” Sir Martin sees Facebook as a good opportunity for public relations, rather than as “an in-your-face advertising medium”.

Facebook’s advertising revenue is rising fast, and is expected to top $3bn this year. But already half the population of Britain is on Facebook, with similar figures in other developed countries. No wonder that Zuckerberg sees future growth not in signing up new users, but more in making existing users even more attached to the site.

But as Fortune magazine technology writer Jessi Hempel jokes: “We do need time to eat, sleep, and interact with friends in real life, or we’ll have nothing to photograph and post on Facebook. So there are natural limitations to that.”

By Charles Miller producer of Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook

BBC News – 01.12.2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15962476

If you found this post helpful, why not subscribe to my Blog by RSS Feed or Email and receive FREE Internet Marketing and SEO Tips, direct to your inbox.

As ever, please feel free to comment on this post.

How Spelling Mistakes Can Affect Your Search Engine Ranking Results

Spelling mistakes may have a negative effect on your search engine ranking results, according to a recent, official Google video. In addition to impacting on your search engine positions in Google and other major search engines, spelling mistakes may also put off potential customers from buying from you, by creating the impression of an unprofessional organisation, lacking in attention to detail.

In the following video, Google’s Matt Cutts advises that the number of spelling mistakes tends to correlate with the actual Page Rank score for a specific web page. “We noticed some time ago that, if you look at the Page Rank score of a particular web page, (which is our assessment of how reputable we think a specific page is), then the ability to spell correctly correlates relatively well with that particular metric. Therefore the more reputable websites tend to spell better and the sites with a much lower Page Rank score tend not to spell as well.”

Is it really important to avoid spelling mistakes?

This does not necessarily mean that Google uses spelling mistakes as one of their 200 or so ranking signals. However, Google does consider many other quality related signals when rating your web pages.

What quality ranking signals are checked by Google?

When Google released their first “Panda” update, earlier this year, they also published further guidance on How To Build High Quality Websites. This article contained a list of quality related questions, designed to help you judge the quality of your website, as follows:

• Does the web page contain any spelling errors?
• Is the content duplicated or mass produced?
• Does the content contain any grammatical errors or appear hastily produced?
• Does the content contain well researched and interesting facts and information?
• Would you expect to see the content in a magazine, newspaper or book?
• Are the web pages produced with great care and attention to detail?
• Does the content have an excessive amount of ads or links, which distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Is the content too short, low on substance, or otherwise lacking in helpful detail?
• Is the content impartial and does it describe both sides of a story?
• Does the content provide a complete or comprehensive description of a particular topic?

Improve your search engine ranking results with high quality content

There is really nothing new in Google’s advice, it has always been the case that in order to secure high search engine listings you need to ensure that your web pages contain high quality content.

So, I would recommend that if your web pages are struggling to achieve high search engine ranking results, you review your website and remove any low quality web pages and try and improve the quality of the content of other pages. If Google finds suitable high quality content on your web pages, you will be rewarded with higher rankings.

If you found this post helpful, why not subscribe to my Blog by RSS Feed or Email and receive FREE Internet Marketing and SEO Tips, direct to your inbox.

As ever, please feel free to comment on this post.

5 Top Marketing Tips For A Successful Facebook Business Page

Almost any type of business can benefit from developing their social media profile. Monitoring how businesses engage with social media is now also part of Google’s ranking algorithm and increasing your level of social media activity will help to improve your search engine ranking results. Social media marketing can also help businesses improve their online reputation, develop their trust and integrity and become more accessible to their customers.

Facebook is the most widely used social media website and currently has over 800 million active users, of which over 30% are aged 35+. More than 350 million users access their Facebook accounts via a mobile device. With over 50% using their Facebook account every day, this represents an extremely valuable platform for companies to develop a business presence to promote their brand.

Whilst creating a new Facebook Business page is a relatively simple process, promoting your page and developing regular visitor traffic can be a challenge, especially if you are using Facebook for the first time.

Below are my top 5 marketing tips that will help you to promote a greater awareness of your Facebook Business page and increase the number of visitors:

1. Utilise existing relationships
Contact all of your customers, suppliers, family and friends and invite them to “Like” you new Facebook Business page.

2. Add a Facebook link to your website
Add a prominent link to your Facebook page from your website and ensure that the link is visible on every page.

3. Include a Facebook link in all of your email communications
Including a Facebook link in all of your general, day to day emails and any monthly newsletters will also help to promote your Facebook page.

4. Design a bespoke Facebook Business page
Many Facebook Business pages use a customised Welcome Page which is designed to look like a mini version of the customer’s main website. This offers a stronger branding opportunity and will encourage visitors to “Like” your page.

5. Run an exclusive Facebook promotion
You may wish to consider running an exclusive Facebook promotion where a visitor must “Like” your page in order to reveal a discount code or coupon. This is a very effective method of social media marketing that will help to increase your fan base.

By applying the above recommendations, this will enable your Facebook page to become a successful part of your overall Social Media Marketing strategy.

If you found this Facebook post helpful, why not subscribe to my Blog by RSS Feed or Email and receive FREE Internet Marketing and SEO Tips, direct to your inbox.

As ever, please feel free to comment on this post.

Why Anchor Text Is Important To Your Search Engine Ranking Results

In order to improve the search engine ranking results of your website it is vital that the correct anchor text is used, every time an external link is created. Understanding the importance of anchor text is a critical part of the website promotion process. It is ultimately the number of  back links recognised by Google and the other search engines, like Yahoo and Bing, that will determine your overall position in the search engine ranking results, for your targeted keywords.

What is anchor text and why is it so important.

Anchor text is the clickable text on a web page, which is normally displayed in blue, underlined text for each link.

For example, the following link uses the anchor text Internet Marketing Agency.

In order to create this anchor text link, you would need to use the following HTML code:

<a href=”http://www.internet-marketing-magnet.com”>Internet Marketing Agency</a>.

Using the correct anchor text for your back links is important because search engines use this text to determine the subject matter and relevance of a web page. In the above example, the search engines will determine that the web page www.internet-marketing-magnet.com is relevant for the keyword “Internet Marketing Agency”.

However, for this to work effectively, it is also important that the web page has been optimised for the relevant keyword. The keyword that you are targeting in the anchor text needs to be present in your Title Meta Tag and mentioned several times in your body text.

Each time you secure a new link, the search engines will record the anchor text for that link. If your website has a large number of back links using the same anchor text, the search engines will improve your ranking for your targeted keyword.

The bottom line is that using the correct anchor text is a very important ranking factor. If many back links point to a web page, with the right keywords in the anchor text, than that page has a very good chance of being listed highly in the search engine ranking results.

If you found this anchor text post helpful, why not subscribe to my Blog by RSS Feed or Email and receive FREE Internet Marketing and SEO Tips, direct to your inbox.

As ever, please feel free to comment on this post.