Facebook points the way for future marketing

Many people would not have taken Mark Zuckerberg seriously four years ago.Who would have?

A 19-year old varsity student at the time, Zuckerberg launched a website that would help people to connect to each other. Who would have invested in that? Four years later anyone who may have scoffed at the idea is certainly eating humble pie.

Now 23, Zuckerberg has sold a mere 1.6% stake in Facebook to Microsoft for US$240-million (R1.6-billion), which values Facebook at US$15-billion (R105-billion). So all marketers' ears should prick up when Zuckerberg has something to say.

Speaking at Facebook's social advertising announcement in New York City last week, Zuckerberg said this: "Once every hundred years media changes. The last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next hundred years information won't be just pushed out to people, it will be shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change. You will need to get into these connections."

Zuckerberg went on to state an obvious simple truth which is the secret to Facebook's 50-million subscribers: "People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising."

The personal touch Facebook has two advantages. Firstly, its users tell it who they are and what they enjoy. This has enabled it to launch its new advertising system to get targeted advertising to Facebook users based on their profiles.

Secondly, the majority of users access Facebook through the internet which is their primary form of communication. The simple aim behind Facebook's strategy is to get advertising to be seen by people who will take an interest in it. This leads to the extension of a brand and ultimately to increased sales. And all because Facebook is hitting the nail on the head when it comes to what people want: the desire for a personal communication, information that is relevant to them and the right to choice. South Africa different

While Zuckerberg's comments ring true in the case of Facebook - where the internet is the dominant communication channel in first world countries - South Africa is a little different.

There are only 454,226 (as of November 19, 2007) people registered on the South Africa network of Facebook. Even if we took into account South Africans not registered on the country's network and said there were a million South Africans on Facebook, it would still only account for one percent of Facebook users. The reason for this is that in South Africa, the internet is still a privilege for the few. According to the World Wide Worx's most recent Internet survey (http://www.theworx.biz/access07.htm), 3.85-million people in South Africa - a mere 8% of the population, or one in 12 people - will have access to the internet by the end of 2007.

While there are 3.85-million accessing the internet, there are only 800,000 broadband subscriber accounts and just under a million dial up accounts. Mobile has dominance So the internet is not the dominant means of communication in South Africa.

That position is held by the cellphone. The latest financials from the cellular networks put the active number of SIM cards at 40.7-million. While the actual number of subscribers may be quite a bit less than that, a sizeable amount of the country's population owns a cellphone. In other words, if you're thinking that you no longer want to go the mass media route and it's time to become more personalised, then you need to think about marketing to people through the device they use the most - the cellphone.

And Zuckerberg's words are just as true for the mobile space. They key for marketers going forward, is connections.  People are connected to their cellphones. As soon as a message comes in, it's read within seconds. In fact, research has shown that the average cellphone remains within a two metre radius of the user. And like the internet, cellphones now provide a multimedia experience either with MMS or mobi websites which contain video clips, voice, music, graphic and text.

The key for marketers now lies in knowing who their base is and the kind of things they are interested in. Because if you give people what they want, they will act on it - either by responding to the information or forwarding it on to family and friends.

As Zuckerberg says to marketers, pushing out information is no longer enough. The future is viral and marketers need to gain insight into what people think in order to communicate effectively with them.