Facebook Case Study

1. Why do people use Facebook and what do they do when they are there?

Facebook is the most successful social networking site to date. People use Facebook to browse profiles of their friends, join social groups, browse and share pictures, advertise their own business, check out the advertisements of other businesses, set up social events (invitations, time location etc.), and post updates about themselves. Updates can include anything from how they're feeling, to what they just purchased online, to a video they found on YouTube. People use Facebook, rather than other social networking sites because it offers personalized privacy settings. This is a step up from other competing sites such as Myspace. Another reason people are using Facebook is because it is the dominant design and if you need to get into contact with someone or even keep in touch they can most likely find them on Facebook.

2. Evaluate the success of advertising on Facebook.

Facebook had two different types of advertising, Facebook pages and Social Ads. Zuckerberg explained how Facebook's advertising strategies were better in comparison to traditional strategies because the messages exchanged between friends are taken more seriously than messages sent by a company. Facebook pages advertise certain messages in peoples newsfeeds and also notify friends of a user that "become a fan" of that company. Facebook's social beacon was not favorable to users at first because it was "opt out" not "opt in" which meant advertisers would display activity without first asking the user and that lead to unhappy users who said it was "an invasion of privacy". Once the social beacon became "opt in" users were much happier with the service.

3. Evaluate the success of Facebook fan pages.

Fan pages are so successful because they are integrated right into a user's newsfeed. If a company updates their page then a "fan" will see it and know about it. For fan page success they must update their page regularly, use different advertising techniques such as videos and survey polls, and make sure to promote existing advertising sites for the company if there are any. Survey polls catch users' attention and encourage user input where videos are catchy and help users remember sales, deals, and new products that were advertised. Another reason why they are so successful is because when you promote a page is showed on your friends news feed making it more likely for your friends to promote the page.

4. Evaluate Facebook Platform and Facebook for Websites.

The Facebook platform added to the many features already offered by Facebook such