Inside Facebook announced today that they will dive into the corporate world and offer their services first to a select few companies, then they will slowly offer it to the world. However, facebook's strategy is simple: WOM or viral marketing. Just as they launched the college facebook to Harvard first, then to Stanford…little by little offering it to more colleges, the corporate facebook will follow the same path.
Perhaps what is very interesting about this "viral" strategy is blogs and social networking are all Word-of-mouth tools. So what facebook is doing here fits quite well and shows the POWER of word of mouth. Yes, word of mouth is very powerful, which is exactly why BLOGS are NOT a fad.
Although I think this corporate facebook is a GREAT, I do have some questions:
- How will the college generation react to this change? Will it be embraced or pushed aside?
- Will this be a hit for the corporate world? Or has LinkedIn sucked all the fun out of social networks for the corporate environment?
- Will this help Facebook make money?
- Will Facebook offer a "paid subsciption" offering corporations will value-added tools?
- Is this the new rival to LinkedIn?
Here are a few other blogs talking about this new creation:
- The battle between facebook and myspace (Will the edition of corporations give facebook the competitive edge over myspace?)
- Trying To Justify That $2 Billion Pricetag, Facebook Expands Beyond Students
- Facebook pursues corporate america
So I would like to hear your thoughts…please talk back.