In my previous post on Facebook I wrote about the changes that Facebook has brought about to the Internet advertising industry by introducing Social Ads and capitalizing on the revenue generating capabilities of a social network. The other change that Facebook has introduced with respect to advertising is that it now allows Companies to officially create business and fan pages (well actually first businesses used to create groups where they said that the purpose of the group was business).

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There actually isn’t much difference in terms of functionality between the business pages and the group pages. Admins can post photos, videos, start discussions etc. The same can be done with groups. The minor difference is that members are called fans – that’s a sort of cosmetic change if you ask me!

In terms of admin functionality, Facebook allows the admin to analyze activities such as page views, picture views, discussions, comments etc. This gives the admin a grip on the kind of loyalty and fan following his/ her brand enjoys. The disappointing feature of the business page is that the admin cannot really send invites to friends to be fans of the brand being promoted. So in that sense – it’s just better off for a brand to create a Facebook group (if it needs to create a buzz i.e.) because a group forces visibility in a better way.

Facebook has probably not allowed the feature of inviting friends to be fans because it would lead to users being upset and intruded, maybe even harassed (and also it does not want free exploitation of its social network by brands). Also if people could anyway reach their prospects for free, they would not use Facebook ads at all!

Which takes me to my next point…

One smart step that Facebook has taken (as a critic I would even say its gimmicky but its an Internet innovation nevertheless) is that as soon as a business page is created, it recommends that the admin create social ads in order to promote the brand. As mentioned in my previous post on Facebook, a brand requires about $5 or Rs. 200 to start advertising on Facebook. So due to the low start up costs and the possibility of reaching a captive audience, brands are likely to use the tool as soon as they create a business page. I also think that the cool feature of analyzing activities on the Business Page is also a marketing tool for Facebook ads because psychologically it is telling the brand – “you have possible access to so much control and you can further strengthen your grip on this control if you get more users to your page by advertising”.

Nevertheless, it’s a smart move to give businesses an idea of the benefits they can gain by offering free services and immediately offering more so that the purchase of a service seems more relevant; and the advantage tangible.

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