Facebook Report

Description

Facebook^TM is a social network that allows its users to create a personalized profile. These profiles contain general information such as education background, work background, interests, photo albums and groups. Furthermore, users can opt to add applications that further personalize their profiles. Users befriend other users, write messages on their walls, post links, videos, pictures, song clips and more. Facebook^TM friends typically consist of colleagues, personal friends, family members, etc.

Facebook^TM was founded in 2004 as a social network for Harvard students. In less than a year it spread to colleges and universities across the United States and had gained over 2,000 users. In 2005 the network was opened to high school students and in 2006 22,000 commercial organizations joined Facebook^TM.[1]

In August 2007, Facebook^TM was the third most popular website. It now has well over 22 million unique visitors and over 15 billion pages viewed. It's average user spends approxiametly 20 minutes on the site and two-thirds of its users log in at least once a day¹.

Here are Facebook^TM’s demographics.[2]

Facebook^TM offers commercial organizations the opportunity to create a brand page, otherwise known as a fan page.

Here are some screen shots of Live Oak 360 and BudURL’s pages

Messages

General Message

The general message to be projected by Live Oak 360’s social media campaign is that Live Oak 360 is an integrate part of the community that is listening to others and cares about what the community has to say. Also, Live Oak 360 is here to educate and improve companies’ digital landscape.

In regards to Facebook^TM, Live Oak 360 broadcasted their participation in the Facebook^TM community. They also encouraged dialogue in this network.

Specific Messages

Twitter^TM – Live Oak 360 Account

·         February 2, 2009

o   “Wanna give us a free birthday present? Be our friend? Please? :)”

o   “You should probably be a fan of ours... Just a suggestion :P”

o   “How many 7 year olds do you know on Facebook?”

·         February 3, 2009

o   “I remember when Facebook was for college students only..”

o   “LiveOak360 is showing love to Facebook this week”

o   “Please R/T, let's see how many fans we can get today”

o   “Become our fan! :)”

Twitter^TM – BudURL Account

·         February 2, 2009

o   “Check out BudURL on Facebook!”

o   “I meet someone with almost 5,000 facebook friends the other day. How is that even possible?”

o   “As a college student, Facebook is my favorite social networking site. Now BudURL is there!”

·         February 3, 3009

o   “Officially over 100 fans, think we can make it another 100 in a day?”

o   “Please R/T, lets see how many fans we can get in a DAY.”

o   “Apparently Twitter is becoming more popular than Facebook...”

o   “We're getting there with the fans.. r/t & become a our fan :P”

·         February 5, 2009

o   “We're still trying to reach our facebook goal.. and I know you want to be our fan. Don't deny your true love. <3”

o   “Show your budurl love <3”

Facebook^TM – Live Oak 360 Account

·         February 5, 2009

o   “Live Oak 360’s Blog

We wanted to give you a heads-up about our blog. Check it out http://budurl.com/yj9s
Tell us what you think. And more importantly, tell us what you wanna see!
Lastly, share us with your friends. Don't worry, there's enough of us to go around! We rely on word-of-mouth, so tell them to be our Facebook Fan too. :)”

Facebook^TM – BudURL Account

·         February 5, 2009

o   “We love our fans..:)

We love our fans and our bud could never bloom without you all. (Hey, we're allowed to be cheesy :P)
We wanted to give you a heads-up about our blog. Check it out http://budurl.com/yj9s
Tell us what you think. And more importantly, tell us what you wanna see!
Lastly, share us with your friends. Don't worry, there's enough bud to go around! We rely on word-of-mouth, so tell them to be our Facebook Fan too. :)”

These messages were typically sent two to three hours apart throughout the work day (8:00 am to 5:00 pm). Twitter^TM messages would have appeared in all our followers Twitter^TM feed and the Facebook^TM messages were sent to our current Facebook^TM fans.

Statistics

Throughout this week there was a subtle increase in Facebook^TM Fans, as well as an increase in BudURL registrations.

Evaluation

Live Oak 360 is seeking to actively engage their audience to create personal relationships that foster opportunity. Through Facebook^TM Fans, Live Oak 360 is creating an open dialogue between the public and Live Oak 360.

Facebook^TM can be used in a number of ways to nourish a community. There are groups, fan pages, applications, etc. However, Facebook^TM seems to be best at enhancing previously existing relationships. Live Oak 360 saw the highest increase in paid customers on the same day they messaged their current Facebook^TM Fans. Although the two things cannot be directly linked, Danowski and Zywica found in their research that, “Facebook^TM is mostly used to maintain or reinforce existing offline relationships, as opposed to establishing new ones online”.¹ Therefore, Facebook^TM would be a great medium to reach out to current customers and fans. Since two-thirds of its users are online daily, it is a persistent means of reaching clients as well as establishing strong and stable dialogue.

However, there are new advertising features on Facebook^TM that’s effects have not been thoroughly researched or analyzed. Facebook^TM advertising now allows companies to create their own ad and choose an extremely targeted audience. Lastly, companies pay per click or pay per views and allocate a daily budget to be spent.[3] These advertisements could allow companies to create new customers.

Another opportunity to further reach potential clients would be to create a Facebook^TM application. For example, BudURL could create an application that allows users to create a BudURL whenever posting a link.