The news by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to add billions of “Like” buttons on sites all across the internet is going to really change how firms advertise their products on the internet. Word of mouth and personal recommendations are the strongest forms of advertisement, and these buttons, in effect, allow internet users to personally recommend products to all of their friends on Facebook.
Right now, to my knowledge, the buttons are only featured on sites like CNN.com, the Wall Street Journal, and Yelp, but I can imagine that all other internet retail sites, like Amazon, will soon add this button so that their users can recommend products to all of their friends. I can even see myself clicking the “Like” button when I see an article or product that I like – in the past I rarely took the time to post any links to my Facebook wall to share with friends.
Because of the increasing connectivity between what people read online and what people recommend to their online friends, it means that both good press and bad press will spread even more rapidly over the internet.
With these new Facebook buttons integrated throughout the internet, firms and marketers will have to keep an even closer eye out for what their customers “Like” and recommend to their friends.
Yeah, really interesting stuff with Facebook.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that, if this catches on, it will open all kinds of doors for marketers and advertising. It would put FB in a great spot as far as generating revenue - they'd have the ability to do some really sweet targeting based on interests, understanding who your friends are, etc. Quite a few advertisers would probably jump at the ability to tap into that kind of targeting.
I think FB wants to be "the portal" that connects everything. Fred Wilson posted today about this idea - he doesn't think there will be one single portal, but I think he still thinks FB's strategy is a good one.
I also just noticed that Facebook has apparently partnered with Pandora. Now on my Pandora page, I can see which of my friends like the artist I'm listening to. The connection between Facebook and Pandora makes sense in a way because, from what I understand, the sites target similar demographics. However, it is slightly creepy that Facebook will publicize my favorite music to my friends without asking me if that's okay and without asking my friends if they even want that information on their Pandora pages.
ReplyDeleteA universal "like" button seems cool, but is it really necessary for everything?
ReplyDeleteAlso, please see my February blog about Facebook - I'm not too fond of it. It's scary how invasive the website has become.