Facebook's Roadmap to the platform for Developers

Earlier today Facebook announced details of a roadmap for releasing more details of the intricacies of the Facebook platform for Developers. Ok again in English, because plenty of people will be discussing this news for the more technically minded. I want to make sure that business people understand how important this development is.

Facebook, the most inhabited Social Media network on the planet (more than 390,000,000 users spent between somewhere between 15 and 19 minutes a day on the site). Has since 2006 opened up parts of the pipes, bells and whistles that make Facebook work, to third party developers. This has increasing meant that savvy brands and small businesses have been able to create presences inside Facebook and to provide their regular website visitors with the opportunity to interact with their friends on Facebook.

Who cares you might say. However imagine this, imagine your business is a pool shop, summer is approaching you have crafted a series of articles about maintaining a clean pool. You start to share these articles via a Facebook page carefully crafted for your business which is building you a little bit of a fan base. Next you order a pallet of bags of a special salt for conditioning pools and announce a special on your website. Using Facebook Connect (code for some of those special pipes and whisltes) people placing their orders on your regular pool shop website with click of a button can let all of their friends on Facebook know about your Super Salt Special.

Now whether you run a pool shop, a restaurant, a golf resort, or a massage clinic I’ll bet you pounds to peanuts that people don’t spend an average of 15 minutes a day on your site. Not only that but the architecture and culture of Facebook is all about friends sharing with friends so, when that customer comes to your website and orders that Super Salt Special you bet that they want to share this kind of information with their friends.

A Facebook Page for your business is a great way to position your brand.

First, a huge caveat on this example, it’s super simplified, it requires a certain amount of technical dexterity to “connect the bells and whistles” and develop the kind of brand presence required on Facebook to have serious credibility. Lastly discounting is the simplest strategy in the book but it can seriously undermine your brand. It’s a strategy we all understand and makes for an easy example however your Social Media Marketing strategy need to be a component of your overall Marketing strategy (an increasingly important component) but not an add-on.

Second, back to that Facebook announcement. The roadmap means that more of Facebook‘s bells, pipes and whistles are being opened up to developers. That means more and more opportunity for smart companies and brands to develop a sophisticated presence in Facebook and to cross-pollinate with their own proprietary Facebook application and linkages between their own web properties and Facebook.

It means that if you don’t have a Facebook presence for your business now is the time to start, and if you do now is the time to innovate to ensure your Facebook presence and integration tightly matching your brand and business values, culture and objectives. Why, because 6, 8, 9 months ago having a Facebook page for your business was innovation, that is changing now and in the not too distant future it will be the rule rather than the exception.

If you would like to find out more about how Byron New Media can assist you develop Facebook presence for your business, please contact us.