Introduction
Facebook is one of the most popular social media websites created chiefly for entertainment purposes. The basic need for the creation of Facebook was to give the people the power to share and communicate with one another freely. Facebook is a platform which allows every person to use its facilities for any purpose they wish to employ. It allows people to express themselves freely and share their opinions and ideas. Therefore, it opens to the people as a portal to share what they feel, connect with as many people as they want. Facebook allows the ability to make friends with on another that helps them view each other’s profiles and then connect them with one another.
In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook as a medium of interaction which became the biggest buzz of social media. According to Zuckerberg, every person on earth must have a set of services available to them because they can act as essentials. Facebook operates as a part of Internet.org, which is a project that was launched more than a decade ago. Initially a mere social media platform, this very website was able to generate billions of dollars and became a very resourceful and lucrative business opportunity. Facebook has opened up to become a commercial entity and with the passing years, this trend has become one of the mainstays of the company.
Mission
In the year 2012, Facebook engaged over a billion users which made it one of the most popular websites being used by the public. Thus, after the company saw such a revival in its usage, it began to change its outlook for the media users as well. Not only does the CEO of Facebook have the mission of connecting the developed and developing world within its own self, but he is also working toward providing facilities such as the internet to underprivileged people who cannot access Facebook without it (Shari, 2012).
Therefore, he carries the noble mission that through the success of Facebook he will be able to connect even that part of the world which is not in access to the rest of the world due to lack of facilities. Hence, when it comes to the values and principles of the company, it follows certain rules.
Values
The CEO calls it the ‘hacker way’ where he touches upon the 5 main core values of the company and how he wishes it would operate in the world (Shari, 2012). The first value of the company is the focus it lays on impact. The impact here means that the influence the company can make on the world needs to be exactly what would help the masses and how this is being done also needs to be kept in check. The impact thus, is created by checking that the company is addressing the major problems in the world and the communities of the world and how they are spreading the world or popularizing the matter all around (Shari, 2012). This helps to engage people into coming together and overall a majority of people standing up for one cause shows the impact created.
The next value that the company goes for is to move fast. Moving fast means that the medium is used for breaking through and finding more opportunities to crack rather than remaining stagnant and not moving on with life’s stories. According to the CEO, Facebook’s mission is to move very fast so they can make progress by moving fast which means the company wishes to expand at an exponential rate by doing things that will make a breakthrough in events. The progress of the company is contingent upon its ability to make things work by influencing people and going the long way to making that happen. For example, Facebook might start viral campaigns such as the ALS challenge which picked up very fast and then making collaborations with other social media apps such as Instagram and Whatsapp (Shari, 2012).
The third principle is being bold. The company has surely done things and introduced such features which have never before been exhibited on any other social media website. People have explored the internet to such a great extent via the use of Facebook that it has gained immense popularity only because of such endeavors (Shari, 2012). The company not only makes bold decisions itself but also encourages people to do the same because according to the CEO, being bold leads a person to make the right choices and exploring all the options. This eventually helps to gain the confidence to redeem strength and come out stronger. For instance, Facebook has changed its features periodically, and its policies have become stricter only so that a certain goal can be achieved. Hence, this has increased the reliability of Facebook (Shari, 2012).
The next value which Facebook cherishes is open. Being open means that the world should be free to say what it wants without being restricted at every point. The more open the world is, the more issues are put forward, and people contribute to solving them as well. This eventually helps to put out the voice of the minority and the underprivileged, and there have been so many viral campaigns that have helped people all around. So many cases regarding legal, criminal, abuse and violence have been put forward by the world that other people gather awareness about them, and they learn from these by sharing then with others and acknowledging them. Charitable causes are also supported by Facebook and at the time of natural disasters, war, and controversy; people come forward using Facebook as their platform and state the issue (Shari, 2012).
The other value most important to Facebook is so build social value and become a prominent member of the society. Facebook helps and encourages people to do something great every day and put it out for the world to see not in an attempt to show off but with the aim of helping society and building it into a better one. Social value is gained by positively contributing to society (Shari, 2012).
Principles
There are certain principles that available on Facebook, which outline the opportunities the company provides to the users. The first is the freedom it provides in sharing and connecting with other people. People have the freedom to share any kind of content they want, either by personal videos, pictures, and messages- any format they like and they have the right to contact any person on Facebook. It can also be an organization or service too, provided both parties consent to connecting with each other (Shari, 2012).
People also have the freedom to own and control their information. They have the freedom to share it with whomever they want and take it as far as they want as well. They also have the ability to delete it from Facebook if they wish. People also need to have the freedom to choose whom they share the information with and hide it from others as well. Privacy control helps people from deciding whether they want to keep it private or public (Shari, 2012). Limiting the availability of information is also a choice.
Information is the fluid of Facebook which means it access is freely available to any person whenever they wish to get information from any person or page on Facebook. People are also provided the practical tools and media for sharing information quickly, easily and efficiently (Shari, 2012).
Moreover, everyone is equal on Facebook. There is no difference between the freedom to publish content, be it a person, an advertiser, a publisher, an organization or any other body. They can represent and distribute information as they like without any barrier. However, there is a set of responsibilities and rights that are available to all people using Facebook. Social value helps people to make people build connections, trust others with their privacy and use their identity to share their views with others. This is however done in coordination with Facebook rights and responsibilities section (Shari, 2012).
Organizational Structure
Facebook has a complete organizational structure. It is chaired by the board of directors which are under the CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is originally responsible for setting up and directing the company from scratch. He also leads the company from its design and infrastructure and develops its basic features as well (Dawar, 2014).
The Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg is responsible for looking over the business operatives and directives for the company. Her duties include managing and controlling the sales, business development, the legal boundaries and working, marketing, human resources, and communication as well as designing the public policy (Dawar, 2014).
The company has a well-developed audit community which checks the profits and the monetary issues related to the operation. It has one chairperson and two members who work in coercion. There is also a governance committee that checks over the management of the company’s matters as well. It also includes one chairperson and two members (Dawar, 2014). A compensation committee is also present in the organization. It too has one chairperson and two members of the committee.
Below them is the management. The management is none other than the CEO himself. Mark Zuckerberg himself looks at all the matters relating to running Facebook and whatever innovations are made done through his efforts (Dawar, 2014). Facebook reports all of its financial assets and financial releases to the public and the governmental agencies so that its operatives and income are clear. The reports are available online and can be accessed easily. The reports are also published each year on a quarterly basis. Facebook is available to businesses, and they can run their accounts easily on Facebook provided they are giving a certain leveraged amount to the company so that the income remains regulated and Facebook can support these businesses justly (Dawar, 2014).
SWOT analysis
Facebook has certain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. By performing a SWOT analysis of Facebook, these can be easily discovered.
The strengths of Facebook are that it provides ease of access and communication. Facebook is helpful as it integrates many websites and organizations in one place. There are many applications which have merged with Facebook, and they are running successfully with the company. There are over a billion active users on Facebook, which makes it one of the most popular and successful social media websites. Moreover, it is popular because Facebook provides the best user experience and people do not complain about it being slow and hard to load. Moreover, Facebook exactly understands what the users need and what features they want to use the most on Facebook (Makos, 2015).
There are several weaknesses as well. It does not have the click-through-rate of advertisements, so there is no clarity of how much it costs to a person. It does not have a dislike button or option, and there are some privacy concerns due to the default public profile picture. This sometimes creates a negative image of the company that it does not carefully look into the privacy matters. There is no website customization, so it remains to look the same for everyone. Also, since hacking is not difficult, the users’ private information and content are weakly protected (Makos, 2015).
There are also a number of opportunities that can be availed by Facebook. Ever since Facebook became available as a Smartphone application, its use has only increased over the time. More people are using Facebook on mobile devices. It can expand to China where social media is restricted or banned, and when it does, a huge Chinese population will use it. Facebook can become an open marketplace for users, and this will help to bring more resources to its revenue (Makos, 2015).
Threats include the increased number of mobile users, which increased the load of the added members. Users have the ad-block extensions which prevent them from viewing advertisements. There are issues such as identity theft that can make Facebook look unreliable. The business model also appears to be weak since the company can utilize much more than what it makes, and it can enhance, but a weak model can lead to a loss instead of profit (Makos, 2015).
Corporate Strategy
The corporate strategy of the company is based on the investment it will make with the earnings of the company. The basic strategy in the corporate sector for a social media website is to invest and make money through advertising which is the main source of income (King, 2015). The company has planned to make advertising more innovative. The advertising being done on Facebook will be through a low-bandwidth video means. The company wants to connect another billion people to its network. (King, 2015).
Moreover, the company wants to build drones (King, 2015). These will help access people who do not even have the access to the internet, and it will create awareness thus boost the company. Drones will help to beam the internet across the satellites to the people who don’t have mobile internet. Moreover, the company depends on artificial intelligence being the next big step. Facebook will help users in the future to retrieve things for them rather than looking for them or doing anything themselves. Facebook has set up an AI team which is building the system where one command given on Facebook can help users with everyday needs and even socialization (King, 2015). Gaming and using the virtual reality arena as a medium is also a strategy that is only going to increase popularity and call more people toward Facebook.
Competitive Strategy
The company surely has thought of its competition, and it is working toward making it happen. The first thing it did with its success was to take over Whatsapp and Instagram, but it does have other competition as well; in the emerging face of Snapchat. Facebook enjoys a massive lead in popularity over other social media networks. Instagram has 300 million users, and Whatsapp has about 800 million users, which adds to the total popularity of the company and its edge over the rest of the companies (Dawar, 2014). Since Instagram and Whatsapp were blooming applications, the merger or purchase of these has increased the competition to beat Facebook’s revenues. Moreover, Facebook threatens Google because Google is so far the leading advertising giant in the world. But Facebook’s presence on the mobile devices has increased access to advertising which makes it reign the advertising arena almost equally (King, 2015). Facebook’s messenger is also evolving and becoming more developed where people are communicating over it like a mobile phone calling service and it is helpful in locking in users (Nunez, 2011).
Facebook also plans to keep its extensive user base so that the company has the perks of being able to sustain its market strongly. All along it is expected that every social media app in connection with Facebook, along with Facebook, will keep gaining more users.
In conclusion, Facebook has become a giant social media platform in a matter of over a decade, and it is growing in strength as a business venture. It has a massive advertising pool, billions of users worldwide and the ability to join hands with other applications so it can overcome competition. The company also plans to make use of other scientific and high-tech services like artificial technology and drones so its popularity can soar to places where Facebook is yet to be discovered.
Works Cited
Dawar, Niraj. (2014). “Facebook’s unbundling strategy makes complete sense.” Hbr.org.
Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/04/facebooks-unbundling-strategy-makes-perfect-sense
King, Hope. (2015). “9 slides that explain Facebook’s 10-year strategy.” Cnn. Retrieved from
http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/07/technology/facebook-drone-in-flight-f8/
Makos, Jim. (2015). “SWOT analysis on social media.” Pestle analysis. Retrieved from
http://pestleanalysis.com/swot-analysis-on-social-media/
Nunez, Michael. (2011). “Mark Zuckerberg outlines a Facebook strategy in Charlie Ross
interview.” International Business Times. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/mark-zuckerberg-outlines-facebook-strategy-charlie-rose-interview-651331
Shari. (2012). “Facebook’s 5 core values.” Delivering Happiness. Retrieved from
http://deliveringhappiness.com/facebooks-5-core-values-for-success-at-work/
