Mike Stiles
When you think about what you use the Internet for, you probably come up with a list of the usual suspects. You research stuff, you might use it to buy something or book travel, you watch videos, you get the news, you use it to communicate, etc.
Now what can you do on Facebook? Well, you can research stuff, buy something, book travel, watch videos, get news, use it to communicate, etc.
See what happened there? Facebook has become so ubiquitous and, thanks to its Open Graph capabilities and ability to pull offsite apps into Tab views, spread its tentacles across absolutely everything people do on the Web; to the point where it has, for all practical purposes, become the operating system for the entire Internet.
Remember back in the Stone Age when the Web gurus were pressuring you to get a website up and running, telling you how essential it was? Getting that website up was definitely the right thing to do (unless you put it up only to abandon it). But ironically, thanks to the hyperactivity of technology and innovation, things have changed so fast with the dawn of the social revolution that, quite frankly, you don't really need your own website anymore.
Facebook users can access nearly every company currently doing business. They can play games with friends or strangers. They can message and video chat. They can see updates, pictures and videos. They can participate in sweepstakes and contests. They not only can get the news, they can organize the news they want from the sources they want with Interest Lists. They can do just about anything they would want to do anywhere else on the Web?all within the context of their social graphs.
Which might leave you asking the question, "What am I doing or offering on our station website that our listeners can?t also do on our Facebook page?" I think you'll be surprised when the answer comes back, "Not much." And a couple of recent Facebook developments may soon be giving the social networking heavyweight an even larger percentage of users' online time.
Development 1: They're rolling out a service in which your Facebook email and Facebook Timeline are more connected and intertwined. Not even Google has married Gmail this tightly to its Google+ platform. With this development, Facebook advances deeper into the hub for messaging and email activity.
Development 2: "Groups For Schools" is Facebook?s new college collaboration tool. This puts them firmly in the file-sharing arena. Students can share un-copyrighted files up to 25MB with groups organized around classes, frats, whatever. Other students can download the files right from the News Feed. Don't expect Facebook to stop at colleges. Business groups could quickly emerge, and Facebook's file sharing could become the hub for both business and social collaboration. If Google Docs has reason to worry, should you?
Facebook realizes they will hit a point at which bringing new users to the platform will top out. Pretty much everyone who's going to be a social network user at all will be on it. To grow further, they have to focus on engagement and the time people spend on Facebook. What better way to grow that than to offer every online activity conceivable within the Facebook environment?
Am I suggesting you shut down your website? No. Many of you have digital advertising strategies up and running on them. But are you telling listeners to go to your website or your Facebook page? Telling them to go two separate places is not exactly a laser-focused approach. Station brands that place their focus on building an actively engaged fan base on Facebook, then leveraging that community by integrating the exciting array of emerging apps and functionalities that will constantly be debuting, will be the brands operating from a position of social strength.
Mike Stiles is a brand content specialist with the social marketing tech platform, Vitrue. Check out his monologue blog, The Stiles Files, and follow him @mikestiles
(4/20/2012 12:40:16 PM)
We have only about 3,200 followers! LOL!
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