Facebook Case Analysis

Case Study: Facebook| Introduction Recently, the social networking sites are getting much more popular on the internet. They are playing a vital role in the way that individuals can easily create their own online profiles, construct their identities and help communicate with each other. Literally, there are many social networking sites worldwide; however, Facebook is the most well-known one since the number of its visitors is significantly increasing.Historically, Facebook was founded almost nine years ago by three undergraduate students of Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg and his two colleges, where it was firstly used by the members who have only ‘. edu’ email addresses. A month later since Facebook had been launched; it was spread very fast where it was used by the majority of Harvard students, then the number of Facebook users increased rapidly after Zuckerberg had left Harvard and move to California in order to make the site expanded more and more (Valenzuela, Park, Kee, 20 08). The majority of the individuals who are surfing the internet, spend lots of time on Facebook.They are able to visit their own profiles as well as they can even browse profiles of other people and share interests like photos, games and information (Mikolaj et al. , 2011), (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). In this paper, there are a number of questions concerning the Facebook and will be answered. Question 1: Why do people use Facebook, and what do they do when they are on the site? What are the implications of this behaviour for individuals, organizations and for Facebook? Facebook is one of the social networking sites, which has become the most popular site globally (Lipsman, 2011).The number of individuals who registered in Facebook site reached a billion about four months ago (Mikolaj et al. , 2011). Generally, individuals are doing a variety of activities using Facebook platform on the internet. People have a great opportunity to create their own public profiles, in which their old an d recent information can be browsed, where Facebook users are able to write their personal information on their own profiles like names, living places, interests, study programs, contact details, photos and pictures as well as the other favoured sites (Hargittai, 2010). In addition, Facebook nables the individuals to communicate and connect with distant friends, colleagues and strangers, showing and sharing their lists of connections as well as extend and strengthen their relationships and friendships, meet each other and sharing their interests, and they can even share the media content (Griffiths & Kuss, 2011). People can also shop online using Facebook browsing shopping pages, seeking for groups or members, and browse people’s walls (Mikolaj et al. , 2011). Moreover, Facebook users are able to play free social games such as Zynga, which in turn would help them connect with the other communities.According to Piskoriski (2011), there was a survey done by Information Solution Group demonstrated that more than 30 percept of Zynga game players pointed out that the games enabled them to connect with family and present friends whereas another third admitted that playing games on Facebook made them connect with old friends and one third used them in order to make new friends. Additionally, concerning the effect of Facebook on organisations, organisations are using Facebook platform to make their names much more well-known which in turn leads to increase their sales and profits (Mikolaj et al. 2011). Actually, there are two main factors that have made Facebook the most popular social site internationally: Firstly, the need to belong, secondly, the need to view limitation. All those factors could be influenced by several variables such as demographic and personal attributes, and social and cultural background (Ashwini & Stefan, 2012). In contrast, using Facebook could be leading to the negative consequences. In other words, the increasing hours people spend on line, may be indicative of potential addiction particularly for students (Griffiths & Kuss, 2011).Grabmeier (2010) claimed that there is a strong link between using Facebook and low grades achievement at universities. This is correlates with the recent study showed that â€Å"Facebook users had lower grade academic performance and spent less time studying than students who did not use this social networking sites† (Griffiths & Kuss 2011, 10). Furthermore, Griffiths and Kuss (2011) claimed that Anecdotal case study evidence reported that some Facebook addicts are more likely to have potential mental health problems.Moreover Accessibility of the others’ privacies using Facebook could also be considered as one of the negative impacts of using Facebook. Question 2: How can organizations leverage Facebook for commercial purposes? How effective are company pages on Facebook? Facebook platform is playing a crucial role in commercial purposes, particularly for companies. They are able to create free profile page in order to post information about their products and receive comments about them, as a result, Facebook might invest more in order to enhance advertising products (Mikolaj et al. , 2011).Additionally, further investment in this social site assist the firms improve their own applications, letting the Facebook users engaged in some social events that they might be interested in and consequently the relationship between the firms and their fans would be strengthened (Mikolaj et al. , 2011), (Piskoriski, 2011). Facebook also made new business pages which permitted businesses, brands, products, artists, and public figures to build free custom Facebook pages and attract Facebook users to like them so that users would then see status updates, pictures and videos which posted by the organisation on their page (Mikolaj et al. 2011). This can create an effective negotiation between the firms and their fans. Companies can also advertise their pages on Face book to be liked by users. New advertising products were improved using Facebook which in turn leveraged its users in terms of social relationships (Mikolaj et al. , 2011), (Piskoriski, 2011). To illustrate, friends of a certain company would see ads about that company regularly (Mikolaj et al. , 2011). As a result, Facebook has achieved massive financial benefits from those developers and applications.Question 3: Regarding the Facebook platform, what role does it play for both individuals and organizations? Facebook has some approaches that make it different from other social sites. For example, Facebook users are able to browse each other’s profiles as long as the profiles’ owners allowed that (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Moreover, Facebook permitted users to add applications in order to enhance their profile and they were set up by Facebook developers (Mikolaj et al. , 2011).One of these applications is games, where more than 40 % of Facebook users had been attracted to play games by 2011. A year after Facebook extended its API to comprise other actions, such as listening to music or reading an article and might be also shared with other users (Mikolaj et al. , 2011). Facebook platform also play a significant role in increasing the profitability of the firms. The immense increase in the number of the Facebook users has made it much more attractive to the traditional companies (Piskoriski, 2011).Firms started to create application platforms and look for new customers and engaging the existing ones on Facebook site by advertising and offering new special prices and posted them on their own profile page (Piskoriski, 2011). As a result, the number of visitors to that profile page of that firms would be increasing which led to a substantial increase in the number of users who are interested in the their applications and brands. Individuals can also see other brands using advertisements for those brands on Facebook. Then the firms’ incomes would b e increasing dramatically. Question 4:Finally, review the final paragraph on page 14. How would you respond to these questions? What should Facebook concentrate on? Recently, there has been a huge collaboration between firms and Facebook platform in terms of commercial aspects. In fact, offering free profile pages on Facebook has made it much more attractive and valuable to many companies. Firms have been able to utilize this feature by doing businesses with Facebook through which they capable to advertise their brands and products on Facebook users’ profiles so that companies can increase their revenues (Mikolaj et al. , 2011).In addition, Facebook application developers have great opportunities to create additional applications, and update and enhance the old ones based on users’ interests due the massive increasing in the number of Facebook visitors who have different desires and needs (Egele et al. , 2012). Therefore, Facebook plays an essential role in products di spersal and increasing sales and then profits of the firms as a result of advertising and applications. Facebook should be focusing on deploying much more effort in order to support its businesses with organisations based on the interests of the users.Development its tools is another factor that can increase its attraction to the investors and then increase profits. There is also an important issue that Facebook should concern about which is privacy in terms of data hankering. Facebook should be aware of keeping its users privacies secure. Otherwise, it will lose its admiration in terms of limiting the objectives for both individuals and companies (Fowler & Geoffre, 2010). Conclusion There is no social networking site as popular as Facebook. It can be used either for communication between individuals worldwide or for commercial aspects.Facebook has several advantages in terms of strengthening the social relationships as well as providing new marketing strategies which in turn leads to the increasing the growth of economy. Nevertheless, Facebook has some negative impacts such as students’ achievement and browsing the others’ privacies. In general, Facebook is experiencing massive challenges to keep and advance its reputation. 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