Management: Face Book Case Analysis
Introduction
Being the most recognized and the most expensive social network in the world Facebook “enjoys three advantages over rivals: technological capabilities, economies of scale in its infrastructure, and most importantly, network effects” (Dawar, 2014). When Zucerberg says that Facebook is not the one thing, we tend to agree, since from the initial idea of being a social portal for college students today Facebook is available for variable companies, businesses and organizations. From what seemed to be an absence of a formulated strategy Facebook managed to gain from the received experience, absorb the knowledge and define its’ future.
Even though MySpace was a successful start-up, it has fallen due to the wrong targets being followed by its management: “News Corp tried to guide MySpace, to add planning, and to use “professional management” to determine the business’s future. That was fatally flawed when competing with Facebook which was managed in White Space, letting the marketplace decide where the business should go” (Hartung, 2011). Facebook was developed by students, who did not expect to attract so many people. Their brilliance was in doing what visitors wanted. No matter what the idea was, the developers made it happen for the users. Since the program had failed to be sold at the beginning, the target was not the profit, but the pleasance of usage. The MySpace leaders were much smarter and more experienced than the college students; that is why they developed a specific action plan, they forgot the main idea of a social network: it is not about earning money, but about being social. Facebook was concentrated on making the ideas work and listening to users, which have lead to its global recognition and preference among users.
Evaluation of Facebook’s strategy
After taking a look on Facebook’s performance I have come to a conclusion, that the company implements a great strategy in order to stay competitive. Firstly, Facebook’s actions and innovations are based on listening to customers’ needs. Secondly, the company cares for the international market; understanding that 80% of users do not belong to US or Canada it has “localized the language for every country where the social network became available, propelling their international growth” (Kagan, 2014). Thirdly, Facebook constantly improves the social concept of communication by implementing latest innovations and it also educates its users about new features. For example, the funny stickers, which people were able to add to the photo they post, were lately offered; a great feature of “memory” started showing customers what they had been doing at this day in their past; an additional filter feature for the news on a timeline became available for top 30 of your friends, so that the users could choose whose posts to see first; as well as an automatic face recognition offered people to send new pictures directly to their friends via messenger program once they had been taken.
Facebook’s competitive challenge
“Zuckerberg appears to recognize that the Facebook brand as a single monolithic entry point cannot be everything social to all people.” (Dawar, 2014). Understanding the necessity of the multiple brands’ establishment in order to reach the interest of customers globally by distinguishing their tastes, preferences and cultures brings Facebook to the challenge of appropriate operational support for the brands and their interoperability being constantly provided. In my opinion, the biggest competitive challenge for Facebook is the ability of parallel development. Each brand has to be modified, improved and studied, thus, some of them can start lacking the necessary attention. As the result, customers may turn to the existing alternatives.
The recommendations to Zucerberg
There are several features, which, in my opinion, Facebook lacks at this point. First of all, it would be great if a user was able to sort his/her posts on a timeline by periods of life (date and time of post being made), by availability for others (public or personal), by moods (which are available as an additional option), by places they had been to and even by the key words. This option would ease an access to the old posts and would allow users to track their life better. Secondly, a more unified personal attitude towards different people in a social network should be allowed. As a user I would like to be able to put certain limits on certain people, while I do not want them to be blocked, or deleted from my friends’ list. The ability to create specific friend groups and manage the personal data access settings for such groups, or even maintaining the same options for individual pages would be an incredible feature, which would bring Facebook closer to the way in which live communication actually occurs between people, thus, Facebook would get more social in a natural way. The third idea would be to synchronize the preferred music. If Facebook connects with ITunes, the playlist from your Apple device could be available for you on your profile. While the user would be able to listen to it, his/her friends would be able to see the track list with all of the bands and songs preferred. Our friends tend to share our tastes; however, they may not always know them completely. Being able to see the songs your friend likes gives an opportunity him/her with a concert ticket, to find out something new about each other, and to find something new for yourself.
Conclusion
The first priority for the successful maintenance of the biggest social network requires a perfect understanding of people and their needs: “No rules. Not really any plans. No forecasting markets. Or foretelling uses. No trying to be smarter than the users to determine what they shouldn’t do. Not prejudging ideas so as to limit capability and focus the business toward a projected conclusion” (Hartung, 2011). It is all about learning about your user and offering him/her something of value. It is all about staying maximum human by being technologically constructed, and Facebook is the best example in this field.
References
Hartung, A. (14th of January, 2011). How Facebook Beat MySpace. Forbes.
Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2011/01/14/why-facebook-beat-myspace/#2715e4857a0b573a6f107023
Kagan, N. (5th of June, 2014). 10 Insider’s Lessons from Facebook’s Marketing Strategy. Fast Company.
Retrieved from: http://www.fastcompany.com/3031417/the-future-of-work/lessons-from-inside-facebooks-marketing-strategy
Dawar, N. (23rd of April, 2014). Facebook’s Unbundling Strategy Makes Perfect Sense. Harvard Business Review.
Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2014/04/facebooks-unbundling-strategy-makes-perfect-sense
