Buisness and Facebook

Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has been expanding its services reaching out to larger groups such as businesses and non profits. Almost any reasonably sized company and many smaller ones now have a Facebook page. The intention here is clear as Facebook now has almost 1 billion users making the marketing potential immeasurable. So how does Facebook get used for a business? Obviously this is dependent on the type of business that we are talking about however many common trends appear when surfing between pages. Event announcements, new product information and customer interaction appear to be common on most if not all business pages.   The most active and often most successful pages are those of companies who ask for both written and visual feedback on their products. Outdoor equipment companies such as North Face, REI and Salomon all offer customers the opportunity to upload pictures and share stories about their experiences with a specific product. Clearly, this could have either beneficial or negative effects but by asking for the public's opinion the companies have established that they have a certain level of confidence in their products. The purchase of Instagram last month further increased the ability of consumers to effortlessly submit pictures of their purchases, providing these companies with a constant stream of free user generated advertising. Because of this it can be argued that Facebook has become one of the most valuable advertising tools companies of this type have at their disposal.