1. The Social Network Platform
FACEBOOK
The Social Network Platform
By- Group 10 (Sec-H)

2. Evaluate the success of advertising on Facebook.
Type of Advertisement Campaign
Year of announcement
Type
Remarks
Facebook Ads
Fall 2007
Facebook Pages
Display Ads
Advertisers could target their campaigns
Ads that generated higher revenues were displayed more frequently.
Low level of engaged was noticed – 5 clicks on displayed
Social Ads
July 2011
Sponsored Stories
Ads for Applications
Allowed companies that had a Facebook page to target friends of fans of that page
Performance was 2 to 10 times better than standard Facebook advertisements.
It turned user interactions into advertisements
Pages
Corporate Pages (2007)
Promoted Page (2012)
Users who liked a corporate page would see status updates, pictures and videos posted by the firm on their page
16% of company’s fans could actually see the company's posts in new feeds
Therefore, in 2012 they came up with promoted pages wherein brands could ensure larger percentage of fans noticing their messages for some fee being charged by Facebook
Mobile
2012
Mobile Sponsored Stories
Mobile Page Post Ads
Mobile App Install Ads
Strong performance; 12 times more click through rates on mobile as compared to desktop
45% less expensive
In 2013, 3800 developers used the mobile app install ads facility
By end of 2013, 145 million app installations were made
Targeting
Facebook Exchange
Custom Audiences
Promised direct response marketers the ability to make ads more relevant and effective
240% more click back on advertiser’s site
For opensky, this facility yielded 30% higher conversion rate

3. Evaluate the success of Facebook fan pages.
Facebook rolled out corporate pages which allowed business, brands, products, artists and public figures to create free custom Facebook pages and attract Facebook users to “like” them.
Also when you promote a page is showed on your friends news feed making it more likely for your friends to promote the page.
Users who liked a corporate page would then see status updates, pictures and videos posted by the firm on their page.
Promoted posts where brand owners could pay to push their content to a broader audience.
Reason for the launch for promoted posts : Only 16% of the fans actually see their messages and announcements but Facebook fan pages allowed users to know more about their favourite brands.
Fan pages were very successful because
They are integrated into a user's newsfeed.
Creating page by a company was free and only had to pay if they want to promote the posts which was well received by the companies.

4. Evaluate the success of Facebook platform and Facebook for websites.
Initiatives :-
Facebook Platform-a set of tools that enabled third-party developers to develop applications on top of it
Social Gaming industry was built on it integrating social elements into it.
Facebook introduced Facebook Credits, a virtual currency that could be exchanged for virtual goods .
Developers could integrate 3rd party through Facebook for websites and obtain significant data.
Users could save time by clicking “connect with FB” when they visit a website for the first time.
Success stories :-
Three months after the launch 3000 applications were released. Platform Helped developers to increase the traffic.. Number of applications had grown to 13,000 in 2008.
Most platform revenues came from casual game developers which paid 30% of sales on the virtual goods and subscriptions to the Facebook
By 2011 the games on Facebook platform attracted 40% of the Facebook users
This growth allowed Facebook to secure investment of 250mn from Microsoft
Facebook for website users showed 50% more engagement than users. Sites that used Facebook for websites saw 30% to 300% increase in registration on their site
By 2012, Facebook websites had integrated into 24.3% of the global web.
Drawbacks:
A very small number of applications accounted for most usage developed under exclusive development agreement.
Applications criticized as “silly , useless and time wasting”
Some developers failed to adhere to Platform rules, undermining the core of Facebook product and agreeing users against Facebook.
Facebook credit complicated the process of converting and exchanging virtual currency.

5. Which of the three options should Facebook emphasize as it seeks to monetize?
Three options are monetize its wealth of data, connections to mobile app developers and improved search capabilities.
We think monetising wealth of data is not a good idea due to criticism which Facebook has already faced from the users for sharing user information to third parties. The have even faced penalty from Federal trade commission.
We think monetizing connections with mobile app developers is good option, as open graph helped to fuel the rapid growth of the traffic towards the app, this will intern help app developers to increase their business.
Improved search capabilities is additional feature that is available for the user, which is not the core requirement for socialising or sharing info with their friends so monetizing it might be sustainable.