Facebook Dominance and Marketing
Many companies in the world use Facebook for marketing to their customer. Many users of Facebook have made it attractive to people seeking to reach the masses without going door-to-door. Facebook works by letting people create an online platform on their platform for free. In turn, Facebook earns money by showing adverts to the users of the community. The adverts are displayed at the request of the businesses that wish to reach customers through the platform. For Facebook to avoid targeting the wrong people with adverts of companies, they need to collect information about people to target the right audience. Some people argue that Facebook is unethical in the way it uses personal data. However, it allows accepting or rejecting the terms of use. The users also choose to terminate their accounts so that Facebook cannot sell their information to businesses like Connect (Baker & Hart, 2016).
Connect uses Facebook to reach many customers. Many customers who learn about Connect through Facebook are happy to learn about the products through Facebook. Facebook algorithms collect information and process them to help the users solve the problem they are experiencing. Facebook, due to its large user-base of businesses and individuals, is a hub of information by itself (Baker & Hart, 2016). People who search Facebook for information get assistance from companies like Connect because the algorithms connect the people who seek information with the people who provide such information at a cost to both parties. The businesses pay in terms of money while the regular users pay by allowing Facebook to see and use their data.
Facebook does not engage in criminal or illegal activities, yet people still associate its use of people’s data as unethical. The company’s bad reputation gets selling people’s data to businesses trickles down to its clients like Connect. Therefore, by using Facebook for marketing, the company could also be smeared by a bad reputation. Connect can do is to find other avenues of marketing so that it reduces its reliance on Facebook (Baker & Hart, 2016). Finding other avenues of marketing will help Connect company lessen the negativity that comes with Facebook and help reach other customers that are not Facebook. Reducing the current reliance on Facebook will also help the business to identify other prospective providers of the services. It will also help Connect to find innovative ways to reach the customers while reducing the costs.
After reducing the amount of advertising and marketing that takes place on Facebook, the company could look for other marketing avenues. One such avenue is philanthropy which can be achieved in many ways. The obvious one is giving money to charity organizations. The second method, especially for organizations without the money to give to charity, includes hosting events, employee workdays, and free services (Baker & Hart, 2016).
References
Baker, M. J., & Hart, S. J. (2016). The marketing book. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.