Facebook and social networks - to transform a community in economic value

Résumé du document

Today, 300+ million people have a Facebook account online. In less than 6 years, this website has been able to reach a quarter of the whole internet population. Facebook is now, the leading online social network and is a game changer in the internet world. Online social networks are becoming a new market that have to be explored if we want to understand how it is going to evolve in the incoming years. If we look at it through a rational point of view, there is no reason people would be willing to share any information of their private life in front of thousands of strangers. Why does the whole world want to connect through this network? What is this new world community that is being created? How did it emerge? More than a technology change, this is about a spirit change. Internet grew up due to the idea that anyone could put his own content online but what is called Web 1.0 is a very static, technical and quite difficult way of making information available on Internet. Web 2.0 is a set of new ideas, designs and development processes that makes the user the central content generator of the site thanks to concepts like tags, comments, interactive links, ratings, easy picture, video, link posts etc.

Extraits

[...] They allow users to create bounds among them and to make information flow on those online links. Facebook do not sell communities to marketers or advertisers but it sells them a way to access those users. Especially it enable them to access specific users that could be their potential customer according to the information they have put into the network. Facebook enables users to create online social links that bring Facebook information about them. This information allows Facebook to segment its users. [...]

[...] They make clients talk about their products and services, and drive them to their own website Facebook as modern tool to digitize and embetter real social links Companies try to create their own communities, but has to remember that their audience is heterogeneous, and have to provide a tribal marketing: Client-client relationship (and no company-client of individualized marketing) The company is a support this relationship Provide affective tools to increase user fidelity II. Communities as digital entities: communities exploiting the market of online social networking Companies can profit from the actual tendency for people to regroup themselves in communities and tribes. Facebook became a tool to prospect, commercialize, fidelize, recruit and communicate. L'Oreal for instance developed several applications on Facebook. Moreover, some companies use a “work with me” add-on application who show on the profile some job offers Facebook as modern tool to digitize and embetter real social links < number > II. [...]

[...] Facebook is now the leading online social network and is a game changer in the internet world. Online social networks are becoming a new market that have to be explored if we want to understand how it is going to evolve in the incoming years. If we look at it through a rational point of view, there is no reason people would be willing to share any information on their private life in front of thousands of strangers. Why do the whole world wants to connect on this network? [...]

[...] As we explained, online social networks allow people to share, connect and interact. Being part of those networks users share information about their private life, their interests, their opinion, their personality Facebook and other online networks have access to all the information users share between them even if they do not completely owe it. They have large database filled with what users exchange. They know their users through the information they are willing to put on the website. Facebook clients are those who are interested in accessing some Facebook users that can be their potential consumers. [...]

[...] On what market ? 123_linkedin_logo.gif I . The market of Social Networks The LinkedIn way LinkedIn is the Facebook for professionals. It is the biggest business-oriented social network with 51M+ members. Members build a contact network consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This contact network is used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know, through a mutual, trusted contact. [...]