Facebook Business Helps Other Businesses

Facebook’s rise to become one of the the largest advertising platforms in the world started in 2004 $382,000 in revenue in just its first year, serving 400,000 college students. The site displayed basic banner ads called “Flyers” that cost between 10 and 40 dollars a day. Many of them promoted events at Harvard University, where The founders of Facebook were headquartered.

Three years later, after the opening of membership anyone over 13 years of agenot just college students, the company took its first step toward what it has become famed for—even infamous—: microtargeted advertising. It launched an advertising program called “Pro Flyers“where advertisers could target specific ads to specific audiences based on their age, gender, location, place of residence, education level, relationship status and other personal data.

Facebook’s approach to advertising has been transformative for businesses, allowing them to greatly expand their advertising options. Just as the internet helped millions of people find others who shared their interests and hobbies around the world, Facebook has made it easier for businesses to advertise to immense numbers of highly specialized audiences. This power has created a wealth of novel opportunities for businesses, as well as multi-billion dollar fortune for facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, founder, CEO and major shareholder of the company.

Buy and sell

In 2007, the same year that microtargeting ads began, Facebook introduced mobile version of your websiteand then in 2010 standalone mobile application. Reaching people on the go proved to be profitable: mobile advertising is now 90 percent of Facebook ad revenue.

Also in 2007, the company launched what it called “Marketplace,” an online space within Facebook where users could buy and sell goods and services to each other. It sought to exploit a particular weakness in human cognition involving breaks in trains of thought. The transition from one context to another is complicated. For example, it’s not uncomplicated to go from seeing a comment about ripped jeans on a friend’s Facebook page to visiting Amazon and actually buying the jeans as a gift. Facebook Marketplace hoped to reduce that barrier by letting users see the comment and make a purchase without leaving the Facebook page.

It took years for this initiative to gain popularity, but the refreshed version Market This launched in 2016 in the USA, UK, Australia and Recent Zealand it quickly became a promising opportunity for companies to connect with users nearby.

Improving communication

In 2008, Facebook launched Pagesa kind of mini-page within Facebook where businesses could post and users could comment and even subscribe to notifications when the business posted something novel. Our research showed that energetic page owners could increase your connections and interactions with your fans.

In 2016, the company introduced a radical expansion, allowing Facebook page owners create chatbots – automated programs that could respond to user queries. For example, a flower shop could have a chatbot that would automatically respond to any customer who asked what hours the shop was open or how much a dozen roses cost. This would give customers faster answers and save the florist staff work.

Chatbots can also be useful in companies. For our research, we created a chatbot in Microsoft Teams that allows managers automate the task of assigning work to employees and track their progress. We’ve found that this reduces conflict because the manager isn’t the one pressuring the employee to finish. And it helps employees feel more comfortable communicating their own needs, such as asking for extra time to complete a specific task.

Facebook’s other business services basically consist of a private social network aimed at businesses where coworkers can collaborateEmployees who are often familiar with how Facebook works in their personal lives can apply it the same interface and tools establish contacts and cooperate with each other at work.

What’s next?

The main guiding principle of Facebook is that people want to see ads tailored to their interests. As a result, it has guided its users’ interactions in a way that helps the right businesses make sales. In a sense, Facebook is offering a novel kind of shopping mall that actually helps connect buyers and sellers.

But as details emerge about how Facebook determines who is interested in what topics and how controversial advertisers can target and even manipulate people based on their interests, the company may want to consider how much data it wants to collect. Customers, at least, seem to think there should be a privacy barrier, even if it results in less ad personalization.

Correction: This article was updated on February 1, 2019 to correct the platform on which the authors created the chatbot for research purposes.