Facebook started its life as a social network. It is still a social network, but it wants more than that. Facebook has waged war with many others, despite it never declares it. From Google to Twitter, Snapchat, PayPal and others. Now, it's setting its aim to be the "new" Yelp and Yellow Pages.
At an event in its headquarters on September 8th, 2015, it wants to be more or less, pretty much everything.
The company unveiled a few design updates to its Pages for small businesses in the hopes of convincing even more of them, as well as their customers, to use Facebook as a one-stop-solution for shopping and beyond.
The company said that 45 million small businesses worldwide are using Pages as their digital storefronts on the web. With over a billion users and counting, Facebook wants to make them easier to find businesses, and for businesses to better serve customers, all withing its app.
"Our mission is to help connect everyone in the world. Businesses often depend on connecting," said Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. "That's where Facebook comes in. If you can set up a Facebook profile, you can set up a Page."
Pages profile service enables businesses to promote products they sell and services they offer. For example, restaurants can encourage people to easily contact them, and businesses that offer services can describe how they perform their services. The features that showcase businesses are the biggest change to Pages in the recent three years time.
The most notable feature is the new profile sections that businesses can now opt to add to their page. Facebook is starting with two: Shop and Services, which are essentially product catalogs.
To make more businesses use Pages, the updates are making Pages more mobile-friendly. Pages can also be featured in industry-specific sections where they're categorized better.
In addition to the new sub-pages, Facebook is also adding new calls-to-action buttons: "Call Now," "Send Message," and "Contact Us", and putting them well above the screen on mobile devices to users can navigate them easier. This prominent feature gives the option for customers to call, message, or contact the businesses they want directly. Businesses that are contacted can then respond promptly to customer, and they can be rewarded with a public badge. Companies can also save replies that they use frequently and also have the chance to choose how to reply to customers. For example, companies can choose to respond to customers privately using private messaging.
So in a case when users click or tap on a product in a Shop section, they're either taken to an external link to the business's website, to Facebook's Messenger app, or get the option to purchase it right from the page.
The Shop section can include a Buy button - a feature first tested in July 2014 - so users can check out without leaving the social network. Facebook is also testing its Buy buttons that link out to external websites.
The potential for Facebook to dig deeper into showcasing businesses and becoming an e-commerce solution is getting more clearer.
Getting To Where People Are
The mobile universe is expanding, and this is one of the main reason for these new updates. As more and more people are using their mobile devices, this is where businesses are hoping to reach their customers. More and more time are spent on smartphones, and not anymore on web pages, businesses just want to be seen.
Creating web application and mobile app are expensive. They are difficult to maintain, and the word-of-mouth within mobile OS market can make or break someone's decision in using one. Since this is a problem for both small and big businesses, this is where Facebook steps in.
“Mobile websites, it's not clear that they're a good solution" for small businesses, said Facebook's Product Marketing Director Benji Shomair. "We can be the mobile solution for businesses."
Facebook wants its Pages to act like one-stop-solution for any businesses that wants online presence. Any business can create a Page to reach Facebook users, share its services, and offer the chance for people to shop.
"It's critical for businesses to be found on mobile," said Shomair. "On mobile in particular, this is a challenge. Why not be where people are already spending their time?"
Facebook is also making things easier for its users to search for businesses. Being able to find a service/business is also an important part of connecting businesses.
Free With A Cause
For Facebook's majority of users, the one billion plus people using the social network, the service is pretty much everything you need on the web. From social media for easy information update from friends, messaging for people you care about, for businesses to meet their customers, as a place to share the web, and many more. With that many services, the best thing is that all comes for free.
But there is one catch for all that compliment: Facebook needs you to help it build its business. For that, it needs your profile, your identity, you habits, your interests, and almost everything it can get its hands on in order to target ads to you.
As an internet company that gives everything for free, Facebook's revenue mainly comes from advertisements its showing within its platforms. While you're using Facebook, you're willing to make yourself exposed to all the ads advertisers are spending their money to show you. To be exact, more than 2 million advertisers out of the 45 million business with Pages are targeting you, and the final decision is yours.
Shomair said that the updates align with what users are already doing on Facebook: searching for information. This is the foundation in which Facebook use to create searchable businesses within its platforms.
Facebook wants to be more than just a social network it was once known for. It wants to be an ecosystem where numerous possible activities that mimics real life can be done. All within its app or bundle of apps. It's trying to give more information, more power to users and businesses, to make them stay on Facebook and remain engaged.
As the internet is growing and the number of users are increasing, Facebook wants to be pretty much everything on the web. And what benefits businesses, will benefit Facebook even more.