Facebook : A Non Replicable Competitive Advantage

Facebook is one of the top social media platforms with more than 1.23 billion active users worldwide. 62% of the 1.23 billion users log in on a daily basis making it the best medium to reach for new customers. Today, businesses both big and small use Facebook as an advertising source to help their brand expand.

Facebook is a social networking website that was launched by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. It was initially designed as a means for Harvard University students to communicate, but it quickly grew and now boasts over 1 billion users worldwide (Facebook 101, 2014). This paper will evaluate the business strategy of Facebook. An overview of the company will be presented, with identification of the company mission statement, financial performance and global operations; a SWOT analysis will be completed, and the strategic objectives will be identified with discussion of specific strategies and contingency plans that will need to be in place to recognize those goals. Lastly, the strategy will be critiqued, with suggested changes presented, if any.

Facebook, which was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, is an online social networking platform with the mission of making the world more open and connected. Within a few years, Facebook attracted millions of new users, from 1 million Monthly Active Users to 845 millions Monthly Active Users. Though competing with global and regional corporations in the industry, Facebook kept growing rapidly. With the high expectation of investors, Facebook finally decided to go public. The “Red Herring” of Facebook stated that its goal was to connect all two billion global Internet users. Basing on our analysis of Facebook’s IPO, we would like to give several recommendations on the

Initially, Mark Zuckersburg , Dustin , Chris and Eduardo launched Facebook in Harvard in 2004 started with Facebook Wall. Facebook started with 1 million users from the Harvard , Yale , Stanford and Columbia university campus and then they concentrated to more university campus to growth for the company. The company then over the years have evolved design layout of Facebook and making more and more easy to use by concentrating overseas and local users and now they have 86% of total users are outside the USA and Canada. The company have launched Facebook video , Platform launches , Video calling , Facebook Search, Messenger , acquisition of Instagram and atlas and Whatsapp and Oculus and Facebook paper , trending in Facebook and many more. The key strategy of Facebook in past was to expand the social network and innovate new technology to make it more effective so that users can share and connect with people through Facebook. Also Facebook is concentrating in innovation starting with oculus - the virtual Reality. The increasing amount of data created by users and to maintain the data and finding the data patterns from the data is among the biggest challenges the company is facing. To provide the security to each account and help users to maintain their privacy is also a big challenges in today's world. Currently Facebook is on the top list of Social network services and they

First is the advertising. According to the case, we know that the major revenue of Facebook is advertising, which took up 98 percent in 2009, 95 percent in 2010 and 85 percent in 2011. Facebook uses all information uploaded by users to become the property of the firm. By analyzing database, Facebook provides advertisers target customized services and products based on users’ preferences and connections. In its view, the advertising which based on social

Facebook is estimated to have over 845 million users, mostly college-aged young adults. Its explosive growth and reputation in social networking have made it not only a market leader, but also a household brand name. The audience is global (excluding China) and the site has now been translated into 70 different languages.

When it comes to global brands, a lot of names come to mind that create lasting legacies and billion-dollar empires, and Facebook is certainly a juggernaut among them. The world 's largest social networking site as well as one of the world 's most valuable companies. Facebook has built an impact on the world in an incredible short amount of time by connecting and influencing millions of people of all ages around the whole world in the most profound ways possible with their breakthroughs in all fields of science, communication, technology, broadcasting and entertainment, revolutionizing the social media and startup market, among many other things, and it continues to evolve, and in doing so, it is also changing the way we see the world and connect with it.

To figure out the future of Facebook we need to dive into the past Internet, the fast growth and even faster decline of earlier social networks like Myspace can show us what we should be looking for. It was only May of 2009 when Facebook surpassed Myspace with nearly 70 million users, a number dwarfed by current “populations”, but was newsworthy at the time. Every social network needs one thing, to be cool. The glitches or unused features can be overlooked, but if something’s cool it will gain a huge following. This reason was responsible for Myspace’s success and directly related to its demise.

In just only ten years, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room idea to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the quickest growing companies in history and is an important part of the social life worldwide. Author David Kirkpatrick provided extensive history and fascinating facts about Facebook in his book, The Facebook Effect. Kirkpatrick begins by explaining how Facebook was created, why it has been so successful, and where it will be going in the future. He discusses Facebook’s successes and mistakes, and explains CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ideas and future plans.

The growth of the revenues directly depends on the growth of users. I believe this leaves the business very vulnerable and dependent on continuous growth of users, which will eventually be only marginally, as the social network already attracted so many users. The low barriers to entry is a direct threat to Facebook as expressed in paper #1. There are multiple new entries and advertising budgets are distributed over a broader social media platform to maximize their profitability. Ideally, investors would like to see multiple revenue streams. Facebook should explore new sources of revenue starting with monetizing some of core product lines. This report has proposed a suggestion on the resources that could be used.

Andrea Matwishyn” a legal study’s and business professor at Wharton says; "Facebook certainly has a tremendous user base, which is more locked in than any social network before, ustomers stay because the stories of their live photos, videos and status updates are stored on Facebook. And although all of that personal information has value, she notes, advertisers still don't know how to use it. For now, "valuing companies based on customer data is more art than science.

Upon examining the positive and negative components of Facebook, Inc.’s SWOT Analysis, a number of issues have been highlighted which the company must address in order to remain relevant and maintain its leading market position. It is recommended that Facebook continue with its Research and Development to increase it capabilities in combatting cybercrime that victimizes its consumers. Facebook is not present in every single country around the world. So, it is recommended that Facebook continue to negotiate with various governments to open markets where it has minimal or no presence. Another recommendation is that Facebook diversify its business to reduce its market risk exposure while making full use of other sources of revenue to keep the company growing.

In recent years, Facebook has been growing constantly in almost every country of the world. It became one of the most successful companies with “more than two billion users (Mozur et al, 2017)” .

As discussed before, Facebook holds a strong position in the market. With 51% active users in 2013, the company also reached roughly double the amount of virtual operators compared to its competitors. As a comparison, Google+ with 25%, Youtube with 21% and Twitter with 21% are relatively far from the market leader’s 51% (Marketline, 2013, pp. 4-5). These numbers make clear the extraordinary scope as well as the influence Facebook enjoys on the social web. Having such a dominant global position, the network offers businesses the chance to connect with customers all over the globe. Primarily used on an American campus back in 2004, the platform is currently available in almost any nation and has been translated into 70 languages (Marketline, 2013, p. 4).

A particular study has distinctively mentioned that Facebook is considered to be a dominant social networking site with an audience of approximately 160 million visitors each