Facebook And Its Promotional Possibilities

Facebook.com, an online social gathering space that was once reserved only for college students, has become a legitimate contender in the arena of online promotion. Comparable to other social networking sites like MySpace and countless others, Facebook was once unique in the fact that it was open only for college students. Now, however, Facebook is available for anyone to join, much to the chagrin of many college students. While the decision to become non-exclusive may have upset the feeling of belonging to something small and intimate, connected to similar college people with similar college interests, it has opened the door for wide scale promotion.

Members of the site are designated to certain networks. As stated on the main page of the site, "Facebook is made up of many networks, each based around a workplace, region, high school or college." For instance, each college is its own network, so my Facebook profile would be in the USC network. This used to be a hassle, even as recent as last year, because not every college in the country was represented by Facebook, so some students could not participate in the fun. Now, every major city has its own network, as well as colleges, and even those without networks can join. Everyone can get involved.

Also stated on the main page is the purpose of the service:

"You can use Facebook to:

-Share information with people you know.
-See what's going on with your friends.
-Look up people around you."

While this may sound like the description of a feeding ground for stalkers and socially awkward gossipers (I'm not judging), and it very well may be, there also lies the possibility of mass marketing and word-of-mouth promotion.

Facebook has advertising features. Once the user is logged in, on the left side of the page is a proportionately small rectangle space for advertisements. Called "flyers," these ads are unique to each user's network. What is cool about the flyers is that anyone can create one. The price to pay is $5 per 10,000 views, which is relatively cheap considering how many eyes could possibly see it. A new flyer will show with each new page view, however all of the flyers (advertisements) for a network are posted on a page called the flyerboard. One can find flyers ranging from students looking for other students to sublease a room and people trying to sell extra concert tickets, to major corporations promoting new campaigns. This can be taken advantage of by bands looking to promote live shows or CD releases, for example. Another perk to this system is that flyers can be posted to other networks the user doesn't belong to. It's like a hip online classified section.

Another useful tool lies within Facebook's digital walls: Events. An event can be created for any type of social gathering, be it a party or study session, and invitations can be sent out to the people of choice by the user that created the event. All of the necessary information is included in the event description and on the event page is displayed a guest list of those invited, those who declined or accepted invitations (as well as those who opted to RSVP "Maybe Attending"), an area to post photographs, and a "wall" for people to comment on. This is essential for gauging just how many people might show up to one's event.

What are the implications of this? For one, we may soon see the death of small paper flyers. You know, the ones that are handed to you whenever you walk out of a concert or down the boardwalk at Venice Beach? Those annoying scraps of colorful laminated paper that inevitably (and usually immediately) get tossed to the ground? Yeah, those are the ones. Online promotion almost eliminates the need for street teaming altogether. For one, it would help reduce the amount of litter in popular flyer-handing-out spots. Of course litter is a ridiculously large problem, but every little bit helps, right? While billboards, bus stop bench ads, and posters on community flyerboards are still effective, there seems to be little use left for the little handouts. A much more effective way to attract attention is to do so online where the person doesn't have to deal with physical clutter. Surfing the Internet, one knows that the Web is full of clutter, so a little more won't really hurt. Digital litter isn't quite the same as physical, Earthbound trash. Also, advertisements and promotional campaigns can be targeted to more specific demographics online on services such as Facebook, MySpace, and music social networks like Last.fm and MOG.com.

The power of social networking is huge. If utilized correctly these online communities can draw countless new fans and create revenue for artists and bands. As paper flyers are analogous to the analogue age, online promotion is obviously the digital way. Digital, the Internet, is the future. As more and more people worldwide become connected and involved in social networking communities, the possibilities for advertising and promotion grow exponentially.