Popular Social Networking Sites - Case Study Example

Popular Social Networking Sites Some of popular social networking sites include Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Google plus. Facebook is free to users and generates its revenue from advertisement such as use of banner ads. The main revenue for Facebook comes from brand advertisement. The advertising revenue is expected to drop owing to low click through rates (Sabin-Wilson, 2011). Another revenue model for Facebook that is becoming popular is Facebook Credits. Credits are virtual currency for games. Moreover, Facebook generates revenue via the Facebook Gift shop (Lopuck, 2012). This is a product that enables facebook customers to send virtual gifts to their friends. The gifts cost on average $1 per gift. On the other hand, twitter revenue comes from advertising products such as promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts (Warner & LaFontaine, 2010). These products allow advertisers to push tweets to users who may even not follow the advertiser’s account. The social media also uses political advertising to earn revenue. In spite this; twitter revenue models are said to be still in their infancy stage. Unlike facebook and twitter, which seem to be diversifying their revenue models, MySpace revenue solely comes from advertising (Sabin-Wilson, 2011). The user does not pay anything for using MySpace social media. It is argued that through its web site and other ad networks, MySpace is one of the most sophisticated social media in terms of collecting data about users and hence the ability to target advertiser’s ads based on users behaviour. Like other social media, Google plus generates its revenue via advertising. However, the Google plus advertisements comes with inbuilt analytic that enables advertisers to know the value for their promotion via the social media. SWOT ANALYSIS: Facebook Strengths Facebook has rapidly grown in USA and worldwide Facebook is the leading social networking sites Facebook is evolving very fast and is being adopted by many at the same time   The firm has attracted many top talents from Google The Facebook social network is easy to use and thus is user friendly The social network has high customer loyalty The financial position of Facebook is strong  The firm is a leader in the market share for industry The interface is translated in over 70 languages enabling many people in the world to adopt and use it The firm has a large number of customers Facebook acts as a virtual reality to users It provides a fun element to users It allows businesses to connect to consumers via advertisement It allows businesses to create free profiles and pages It is the leading application on the cell phone It allows people to connect with old friends It has easy to use features It allows users to follow friends, companies and celebrities The new layout is clean and allows users to quickly send them messages directly The new platform has the profile divided into tabs which allows it run much faster than ever before The new platform has the wall and the minified integrated into a single aggregated feed which allow easier manipulation of user profile The new platform has a single dedicated tab and many other features which allows users to easily share photos and videos Blog subscription service on new platform allows users to join their favourite blogs and enjoy all its contents without leaving Facebook The new platform also allows users to create a profile badge which they can place on their blog or website that can show their current status and act as business card which can in turn pull people from outside Facebook to become their friends The new platform also has the Notes feature which allows people to get more involved in conversation Opportunities Facebook has an opportunity of becoming a default address book It can allow creation of business partners Advertising on Facebook an opportunity to the firm to reach out to its target market globally Facebook has an opportunity of being used to study consumer behaviour for different businesses Facebook has an opportunity for drawing customers into stores by offering promotions via Facebook page Facebook can be used by businesses to collect data via surveys and polls It allows users to communicate freely Facebook may be used to buy/sell through Facebook marketplace Facebook has an opportunity to spur innovation Facebook has an opportunity of launching Facebook e-mail It also has an opportunity to launch Facebook video chart Facebook presents a great opportunity for promoting yourself, businesses, products and services Facebook social adverts have a great opportunity to get targeted advertisement Facebook has the potential of integrating with other services to enable it unleash the full power of the Web 3.0 Facebook also has the potential of changing power structures of people who are within individual network (Chris & Mari, 2010). Weaknesses The use of Facebook raises security/Privacy issues Facebook has a complex interface for users The network is becoming more corporate than earlier anticipated The constant changes to page design threaten loyalty of users Facebook is a bit confusing to business users Facebook faces liabilities such as bugs and other problems associated with operation of websites Facebook does not provide a platform where users can get real answers hence most of them rely on FAQs. Facebook does not allow users to customize their pages The positioning of flash animation often interfere with users Facebook also has too many applications most of which are irrelevant and useless Facebook chat system has very many glitches the new platform of Facebook has removed viral potential which used to make things easily found and immediately visible The new platform has restricted sharing of application which will lead to loss of subscribes Threats Facebook faces competition from other social media networks such as twitter Social media networks are often short lived as exemplified by MySpace and friendster Facebook faces threats from new entrants in the industry such as twitter and Google plus It is also threatened by privacy settings which have seen many photos being leaked per year Facebook is also faced with spamming problem Facebook lacks proper email control which can be used to filter messages and emails that are send Twitter Strengths It has a very high publicity It lacks competitor in micro blogging It is simple and powerful It is free Its brand name is strong It has created bluebird craze Other application authentication is provide by the site Has many application developers around its API It has not yet been implicated in evil activities It is liked a lot by businesses It is real time One can search through it It allows users to discover links and share tools Opportunities It can evolve into a dominant search engine It has the opportunity of becoming the largest social media marketing tool It can develop a twitter connect tool that can enable every site social It is likely to acquire some of the url shortening services It is likely to emerge as a dominant way via which businesses communicate with customers Weaknesses Its network is down more often and hence needs more horsepower It has limited API calls It has unequal distribution of tweets with 10% of its users accounting for over 90% of tweets Has low retention rates of about 40% Threats The much publicity about it might burn it out in the long run It has high rates of spamming Its revenue model is still in infancy May face problems with unauthorized accounts on behalf of celebrities Brand image may be hurt by paid twitter Other social media players my offer competition in micro blogging sphere May face competition from new entrants such as Friendfeed and identi.ca Prospects of Twitter Near term The near term prospects of twitter are to enhance their revenue model by provision of advertising and customer relationship management services. This is expected to increase the sites revenue. The site is already experimenting with house ads, which involve promoting features of their service. Critics have argued that this is not the best business model for twitter given the low click through rates associated with social media since most people go there to communicate (Sabin-Wilson, 2011). The CRM space has been hailed as the best opportunity for twitter to tap into the near future to increase its revenue. By offering their own CRM system and own analytics system to brands, twitter will be able to track and manage conversations within the 140 sphere. This can form a major revenue model for the site since the created brand management system can be resold to global companies to monitor, alert, track, prioritize, assign, follow up and report on the interaction with brands. Medium to long term Twitter’s medium to long-term prospects is to become the main news consumption source on the web and everywhere else. As such, the network is involved in simplification of everything in order to bring more users and more content. Using Facebook for e-commerce E-retail Facebook may be used in e-retailing by creating fan pages for posting contact information. A company may also use facebook in e-retailing to post recent updates. Moreover, a firm may utilize facebook in e-retailing to allow the company and its fans to communicate on the main page. In addition, facebook may be used in e-retailing by a firm to implement discussion on its fan page. E-education Facebook can be used as an incredible learning tool. Teachers can use facebook to enhance communication and to engage students in class projects (Sabin-Wilson, 2011). The social media can be used by students to follow news feeds that are relevant to the course material. The media can also be used by students to share book reviews with their instructors. Students can also engage in playing games such as knighthood that promote reading skills. Facebook can also allow students learning foreign language to connect with native speakers. By creating groups on facebook, communication is enhanced among students and their instructors. Customer centric design of e-commerce websites Find 3 e-commerce websites Good adherence to guidelines (http://www.google.com) Google.com is an example of an e-commerce website that has adhered to the guidelines. The content allows for different age groups with diverse views to utilize it easily. For example, it has Google books and email that suits different people while emphasizing on content. Moderate adherence to guidelines (http://www.trc-canada.com/) Toronto Research Chemicals has moderately adhered to the guidelines. The content is good but the Flash Splash page plus other flash animation consumes a lot of bandwidth, and also the colour combinations are not appropriate. Poor adherence to guidelines (http://www.serene-naturist.com/) Serene Naturist is a poor site because the use naked women to market their services. Moreover, the home page extent beyond the size of the screen References Lopuck, L. (2012). Web Design For Dummies, 3rd Ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons Sabin-Wilson, L. (2011). WordPress Web Design For Dummies. London: John Wiley & Sons Warner, J., & LaFontaine, D. (2010). Mobile Web Design For Dummies. New York: John Wiley & Sons Read More