What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the networking sites, with the runner up being MySpace. It began as a college networking website and has expanded to include anyone and everyone.

Facebook - a popular name among those who are so into it. Individuals who have an account in Facebook are now using more of their time to socialize with other people amidst the distance and lack of time. And even if a community like Facebook serves numerous advantages, it also proves to have certain disadvantages as well. There are now series of improvements in the system just to make up with the shortcomings. Arguments regarding the different advantages and disadvantages of Facebook are stated below.

Facebook was founded by 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and originally called thefacebook. It was quickly successful on campus and expanded beyond Harvard into other Ivy League schools. With the phenomenon growing in popularity, Zuckerberg enlisted two other students, Duston Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, to assist. Within months, thefacebook became a nationwide college networking website.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Facebook

Advantages
· Allows user search for new and old friends
· Accessible to chosen universities having a high level of security
· Makes it less awkward when communicating with strangers or people you are not familiar with
· Love attraction - can be used as a dating service system
· Makes it easier to join groups having similar likes and dislikes
· Allows members to check students who are taking the same class, living within the same area, or coming from the same academy

Disadvantages
· Overcrowding
· Weakening long distance relationship
· Unsupported by physical adjacency
· Contributes wide-range procrastination
· Rampant addiction
· Stalking is possible
· Acquaintances be labeled as friends


The Characteristics of Facebook

1. Facebook doesn’t begin the conversation, it enhances it – If you’re a new or low profile brand looking to increase awareness, Facebook can be a great way to do it. But it comes with extreme diminishing returns, and this goes double with brands that are already well established. Brands that seem to generate interest and report success with Facebook do so with the understanding that most of their users are already on Facebook.

2.They are non-interruptive – Think about all the times you have non-marketing oriented folks tell you why they are on Facebook. I’ll bet more often than not, you hear something to the effect that “it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends and family”. At its core, Facebook is a communication medium. As a marketer, you ultimately either enhance or diminish its effectiveness.

3.They integrate multiple social mediums – Perhaps I’m overstating this, but trying to silo your social endeavors diminishes engagement. But we all know silo-ing an operation is part and partial to large organizations with many moving parts.

4.They use Facebook to create evangelists – Badges, apps, fanpages…all of these things are ways to turn your existing base into your own built in brand evangelizing army. For a large brand, the value to having a ‘friend’ on Facebook isn’t that one friend…it’s the 120 or so friends that friend happens to have.


Can you use Facebook in E-Commerce?

Yes, Between music, virtual gifting, gaming and retail goods, Facebook is turning into a virtual online mall of sorts. We’ve written about Payvment, a startup that allows anyone to create and operate a retail storefront on Facebook. Today, Payvment is launching an innovative new feature for storefront owners on Facebook: the ability for retailers to provide instant discounts and coupons to users that become Fans or “Like” their Facebook page.

Another compelling feature of Payvment’s e-commerce app is the ability to allow shoppers to carry their goods with them across thousands of Payvment-powered storefronts on Facebook. It makes shopping on Facebook almost like shopping at Target, where you can visit multiple departments and buy all of your diverse purchases at once. Users can also add comments and reviews to Payvment-enabled storefronts.


The Importance of Facebook today

The kind of power and supremacy Facebook has seized today is not unseen or concealed to anyone. It has become a part and parcel of our day to day lives. For a common man who isn't much aware of online industry, considers it to be a platform to get in touch with friends and family, buy things and gain some cool information at the same time. But, for internet marketers Facebook is like a goldmine. Today, almost every single existent grown up individual has an active profile on Facebook, and this is the key for internet marketers like you and me.

Facebook is like a free marketing resource. All you have to do is make the right use of it. It is the best platform to make the public aware about your business and service. It has visitors, whom you have to attract with your tactics and ploys. Let your imagination take the charge, and try developing more unique ways of earning through Facebook.