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Facebook is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150 million members by creating one of the world's largest market research databases.
In an attempt to finally cash in on the social networking site, once valued at $15 billion (Dh55.1 billion), it will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products.
Companies will be able to pose questions to specially selected members based on such intimate details as whether they are single or married. The company, which has struggled to make money from advertising, has been demonstrating the benefits of its new instant polling tool to some of the most influential business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook's global markets director and sister of founder Mark Zuckerberg, 24, said multinational companies had been bowled over by the ability to receive real-time feedback from the site's millions of users.
"I had tonnes of people saying 'this could be so incredible for our business'. It takes a very long time to do a focus group, and businesses often don't have the luxury of time. I think they liked the instant responses," she said.
At the conference, Facebook asked a range of questions to its users around the world, before feeding the answers back to delegates within minutes. It selectively-targeted users in Palestine and then Israel with the same question about global peace, before debating the results at a discussion forum. It also asked 120,000 US members whether US President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package would be enough to save the US economy.
"Davos is really a key place to launch an instant tool like this," Zuckerberg said. "It's beneficial for everyone to see us as a global community of 150 million users. The vast majority are not just college students in the US talking about things in their bedrooms. We are showing how we are a serious and insightful community."
Facebook's presence at the economic and business summit is a radical image change for the social network, which is stereotyped as a website used by students or schoolchildren. It now promotes Facebook users as "serious and insightful" adults in an attempt to advertise its members as a useful demographic for marketers.
Marketing experts have said the vast amount of personal information Facebook holds, together with the loyalty of its users, could be worth "untold millions" to companies engaged in market research.
The power of Facebook, and its members, in driving corporate decisions was illustrated last year, when a campaign on the site led to Cadbury reversing its decision to withdraw the popular Wispa chocolate bar.
Cadbury has sold 70 million Wispas since it reintroduced the bar in October after the Facebook campaign attracted 40,000 signatories. Facebook has already sold the new polling system, called engagement ads, to CareerBuilder, a global graduate recruitment company, and AT&T, the US telecoms giant, is trialling the system.
Are you a Facebook member? Are you worried about your personal information being misused? Will this report deter you from using social networking websites?
Your comments
Thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook - the easy access to personal information for commercial and marketing purposes is fraught with risk and the consequences of the same - irrevocable. Not only does this invite the theft and misuse of the user's personal data, it will also erode the credibility of the site. I, as such have nothing against social networking sites, but prefer not to put my privacy at risk!
Shiuli Dutt Dey
Dubai,UAE
Posted: February 07, 2009, 11:14
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