Facebook: The Great Deception

© Imperial College Business School

Tutorial: Facebook

Strategic Marketing – SUMMER SCHOOL 2013 1

‘The Great Deception’


Today’s Session

2

What we are going to cover…

• Three things from yesterday’s lecture on digital

marketing?

*Ten minutes to read the case*

• Facebook Case Study Analysis:

– Evolution of Facebook, its features and road to IPO

– Uses of Facebook for Social Marketing purposes

– Concerns about Facebook and looking to the future…


Yesterday’s Lecture

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Digital Marketing Concepts

Three things from yesterday’s lecture on digital marketing?

1. Six types of digital channel?

2. Four core functions of social media ?

3. What is gamification?


The Power of Social Media

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Why has Facebook been so successful?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UhONY3-1os

- Technological advances?

- Sophisticated algorithms?

- Genius of Mark Zuckerberg?

- First mover advantage?




Who’s this dude?


Understanding Humans

Strategic Marketing – SUMMER SCHOOL 2013 5


Facebook’s Success

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A sociological understanding of human beings

Amour-propre (French for "self-love")

denotes a self-love that depends upon

the opinion of others.

i.e. Looking at yourself through the

eyes of others

Amour de soi also means self-love but

a more narcissistic kind, which doesn’t

involve seeing yourself as others do.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

French Philosopher, who wrote

The Social Contract (1762)



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The importance of understanding human beings

Q. Which button

gets clicked on the

most?



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The importance of understanding human beings

A. In-page analytics

shows this is the

button users click

on more than any

other… Why?


The Great Deception

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What was Facebook’s most important feature?

… And our need to belong

By appealing to our vanity…


The Power of Facebook

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How has Facebook become part of our lives?

Facebook has become the most powerful marketing

platform ever created…

• Facebook generates 770 billion page views per month

• More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared each day

• 200m access Facebook via a mobile device each day.

Average user:

• 130 friends on the site. Sends 8 friend requests per month

• Average 15 hours 33 minutes on Facebook per month

• Visits the site 40 times per month

• Spends 23 minutes on each visit

• Connected to 80 community pages, groups and events


Facebook’s Global Reach

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Countries with the most Facebook users

1. United States 154,828,140

2. Indonesia 36,479,400

3. United Kingdom 29,781,920

4. Turkey 28,309,920

5. India 25,028,420

6. Mexico 23,757,820

7. Philippines 23,209,840

8. France 21,909,300

9. Italy 19,180,900

10. Germany 18,264,560

© Imperial College Business School 12

What we are going to cover…


Group Exercise

13

How have Facebook features evolved?

FACEBOOK FEATURE

e.g. Relationship status

MARKETING FUNCTION

e.g. Obtaining critical mass

SO

CIA

L B

EN

EF

IT


Competitors

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How has Facebook overcome its competitors?


Reasons to Quit Facebook

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Privacy concerns


Reasons to Quit Facebook

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Do you agree? What concerns do you have?

– Facebook’s Terms of Service are one sided (Section 2.1:

Facebook owns your data)

– CEO has documented history of unethical behaviour?

– Declared war against privacy i.e. Open Graph API open to all

– Classic ‘bait and switch’ model – get you to share data you

otherwise wouldn’t share and then open up to marketers.

– Private data is shared with 3rd party applications

– Not technically competent enough to be trusted (i.e. to prevent

hijacking by 3rd parties)

– Difficult to truly delete your account

– Everything for Everyone? Adding every possible feature from

competing sites (via its app store)