Thursday, October 6, 2011

Harnessing Capitalism via Social


Yea, yea! There is irony involved in the caption above. Not talking politics or .... maybe I am .... when talking about media companies going head-to-head with each other. Trends in the media industry suggest that companies which are able to grasp elements of capitalism are destined for supremacy. Facebook is under severe pressure by Google+ given the strength of the Google brand. It is of interest to many to see what will happen.

Salvaging Facebook … !
The general response from consumers to the constantly evolving nature of Facebook is marked with resentment and rage. Considering from Facebook’s own perspective and given the fact that it operates as the most successful player in the social sphere, it has valid reasons to do so. These series of experimenting allows it to evaluate consumer reactions, check responses, attain feedback and gather innovative ideas to see where are the flaws and where are the niche areas where it can improve and get more advertisers. Fair play since Facebook’s advertising strategy allows it to generate more than half of it revenues! However, with all the experimenting, it bred grounds for another social network to emerge.

Enter Google+ … !
Google’s social network came in roaring. It created a series of waves and initially, it attracted a lot of reaction from consumers. Many wanted to be part of it! Its strategy, based on the invite-only basis, elevated the excitement amongst social media consumers. Finally, a perception was prominent that there is some player that was going to give Facebook a run for its money. Google+ was growing quite steeply at the beginning and its adoption rate was eccentric. It was presumable Google was well on its way to cash on its own advertising strategy to becoming the most revenue generating company in the world. The rather ridiculous adoption rate of Google+ possibly had Google getting a bit carried away. Status-quo suggests that Facebook took serious note and answered Google+ in a very, very “social” manner! It embedded new features such as the NewsFeed and is partnering up with Spotify, the social, sharing and caring legal music service from Sweden to forge a combo that will only allow Facebook to capitalize on its more advertisers and compete for the dollars with Google. Google+ has suffered a drastic downturn. It failed to impress consumers and it failed to provide a ground breaking user experience good enough to compel consumers to switch!

The recent amendments in Facebook have allowed it to go more social at the cost of consumers’ privacy. There is resentment, fury and actions full of venom contradicting the ‘fun’ that consumers find in Facebook. Nonetheless, sharing is becoming easier, more seamless with loads of lubrication. Google has started to promote Google+ by adding more features and advertising it as the Next Generation social network. Google realized that best way to pulverize the Facebook strategy is to cash on its own brand. One of the ways it is doing so is by attempting to divert users from Gmail. This is what prompted me to write this post. I think it is self explanatory. As soon as I signed out of mt Gmail, I saw this huge ad Google had dedicated to Google+ to attract consumer consent. One would say Google intends to retain consumer attention, traffic and time on Google products.





Will it be successful? Will Google’s advertising strategy bear fruit? Or will Facebook outdo the Google brand by its all social, sharing, caring and interacting strategy? I wonder, I wonder ….    

3 comments:

  1. So Saleem? From your respective, what does the future hold for Google+? So far, I don't think any social network poses a real threat to Facebook, maybe Tweeter does but then, I think they both stand at different horizons. What do you think?

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  2. So Saleem? From your perspective, what does the future hold for Google+? So far, I don't think any social network poses a real threat to Facebook, maybe Tweeter does but then, I think they both stand at different horizons. What do you think?

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  3. I appreciate your comment and insights. I reckon Google will have survive should it keep the search engine as its core competency and keep on innovating the search algorithm. Should not rule out G+ either ... an article a few weeks ago stated Google were happy to be underdogs to Facebook in the social sphere. This takes away the pressure to maintain the position in the lead and meanwhile, keep researching on where it can outdo Facebook. Should it follow norms as such, it will be on the way to impose some real threatening in the social sphere ....

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