M RahmanMarketing mix of Facebook (7Ps of Facebook)
This is a detailed analysis of the marketing mix of Facebook. It analyses the 7Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, People, and Physical Evidence) of Facebook and explains its business & marketing strategies. Facebook is a California-based online social media and social networking service company. It was launched on February 4, 2004.
Products of Facebook
It goes without saying that Facebook is in service industry, and as a service it is a brand name itself. The mission of the company is to ‘give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together’ (Facebook, 2021). The handy connectivity of Facebook allows users to connect with friends, family members, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances etc. whenever they want. People not only write, but also share photos, and videos on it that enhances connectivity and communication.
Facebook has made a number of acquisitions over the years. As a result, its main products are Facebook itself, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Messenger and WhatsApp are instant messaging services, while Oculus is a virtual reality technology business. Both Facebook and Instagram are social networking services. It is worth mentioning that advertising is the main source of Facebook’s revenue. It is also worth mentioning that Facebook has been criticised for using WhatsApp data.
Price and pricing strategies of Facebook
Pricing is an extremely important factor in building and maintaining customer relationship. Therefore, it is not surprising as to why opening both a personal account and a business account on Facebook is free. Of course, Facebook is a profit-making company and therefore profits must come from somewhere. As mentioned above, the main source of Facebook revenue is advertisement.
Advertisers have different options to choose to advertise through Facebook. For instance, a post or a page can be promoted with as little as $2.00. Likewise, if someone decides to advertise on Facebook on the basis of CPC (cost per click), the average cost per click across all industries is $1.72. On the other hand, the average cost per action (CPA) across all industries is $18.68 (Irvine, 2020). This shows that Facebook generates mind-blowing amount of money from ad campaigns run by people and organisations from around the world.
Place/distribution channels of Facebook
Though Facebook started its journey in a room of Harvard University in 2004, it is now available virtually everywhere in the world. However, its access was restricted for both short and long periods in countries such as China, North Korea, Iran, and some others.
Users can access their Facebook accounts from devices such as computers, tablets, and smart-phones with the Internet connectivity. Social networking service of Facebook is available on mobile apps and on its websites such as Facebook and Instagram. Advertisers can use these websites for their advertising campaigns.
Promotional strategies of Facebook
While Facebook is a tech company, it has used word of mouth (one of the oldest methods of promotion) very effectively. Users have taken the brand name from one part of the world to another through their words of mouth. This word of mouth campaign has gone viral and immensely contributed to the development of the brand Facebook.
In addition to word of mouth, Facebook also uses many other methods of promotion. For instance, it directly recommends advertising campaigns to Facebook business page owners. It also uses TV, billboards, newspapers, and many other traditional methods of advertising in some countries to take its name to its target audience. For instance, Facebook plays ads on Indian television and runs them on newspapers as well. It also advertises on prominent billboards across some cities in India (Mitter, 2018).
People of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin are the founders of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company.
The total number of people employed by Facebook is around 45,000. Interestingly, only 150 people were working with the company in 2006 (Tankovska, 2021). Facebook has 2.7 billion monthly active users making it the most popular social media in the world. However, it has been reported that many users are leaving it for a variety of reasons.
Process in Facebook
Process is an important topic to discuss in the Marketing mix of Facebook. It usually refers to a set of actions sequentially conducted in order to achieve something. Different business functions may have different processes. For instance, the process of creating business pages with Facebook is that the users must sign up and create a personal page first and then they can create a business page.
Physical Evidence of Facebook
Physical evidence usually refers to everything customers see when interacting with a business. Though the physical evidence is very limited for a website, it can be said that the Facebook website looks nice and has a number of features to engage users well and provide them with very good experience. Facebook has offices and data centres around the world, which have state of the art facilities and have a friendly and fresh ambience to the workplace.
We hope the article ‘Marketing mix of Facebook’ has been useful. You may also like reading SWOT analysis of Facebook. Other relevant articles for you are:
Competitors of Facebook (Competitor analysis of Facebook)
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Last update: 02 February 2021
References
Facebook (2021) About, available at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/facebook/about/?ref=page_internal (accessed 21 January 2021)
Irvine, M. (2020) Facebook Ad Benchmarks for YOUR Industry [Data], available at: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/02/28/facebook-advertising-benchmarks (accessed 02 February 2021)
Mitter, S. (2018) Here’s why Facebook is advertising on billboards, newspapers, and TV in India, available at: https://yourstory.com/2018/02/heres-facebook-advertising-billboards-newspapers-tv-india (accessed 15 April 2019)
Tankovska, H. (2021) Number of full-time Facebook employees from 2004 to 2018, available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-facebook-employees/ (accessed 02 February 2021)
Photo credit: Pixabay
Author: M Rahman
M Rahman writes extensively online and offline with an emphasis on business management, marketing, and tourism. He is a lecturer in Management and Marketing. He holds an MSc in Tourism & Hospitality from the University of Sunderland. Also, graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University with a BA in Business & Management Studies and completed a DTLLS (Diploma in Teaching in the Life-Long Learning Sector) from London South Bank University.
Joe David