Social Media

Company information:

Company name     Facebook
Founder(s)               Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes

Founded                 04.02.2004
Sector                      Internet (Social networking service)
IPO date                  Friday, 18.05.2012
Location                  Menlo Park, California, US

Fundamentals and financials:

Market cup                           $498.5 billion
Revenue                                $33.17 billion
Employees                            2-658
Revenue/employee             $1.606 million
Net income                          $13.61 billion
Shares outstanding            2.904 billion
Annual earnings/share       $4.72
P/E ratio                                36.36
Company management: Jan Koum (Director and Chief Executive Officer, WhatsApp Inc.), Mark Zuckerberg (Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most popular sites, and for a good reason, it allows people to connect with their friends and family, share interesting information and gives ample room for expression.

Facebook (the company) manages and develops personal applications and maintains services for an enormous number of users.

The idea of this social platform was conceived by Mark Zuckerberg during his time as a Harvard undergraduate, in 2003. As a business entity, however, the company appeared in early 2004.
It was initially a networking platform for college students, but it has grown considerably since then and increased both in scope and profitability.

Friends Day 2017 Commercial (source – YouTube)

More general information on the company below.

Financial Data

As Mark Zuckerberg himself put it, “Our business did well in 2016, but we have a lot of work ahead to help bring people together.”

This statement puts it quite succinctly – the company is nowhere near done and still has a lot of room for growth which is facilitated by increasing revenues from advertisers who chose this social network as their main marketing channel. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. However, the service offers highly selective marketing options.

Without further ado, here’s a sneak peek at the ‘16 income statement:
Total revenue figure for 2016 is $27.64 billion, while gross profit is at $23.85 billion. Mobile advertising represented 84% of all income.
Total assets are estimated to be around $65 billion, while liabilities and stockholders’ equities are practically the same.
Capital expenses reached $4.49 billion.

More financials can be found in the following materials.

Marketing

“Bring the world closer together.”
Needless to say, the company doesn’t need to market itself. In fact, individuals and businesses come to it to market.
1.87 billion active users visit Facebook on a monthly basis, and an average of 1.23 billion people have used the site daily, which is an 18% improvement over the previous year.

More on marketing below.

Structure ; Operations

20,658 people are currently employed at Facebook. Some of the major subsidiaries include Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus Rift. There are many more business entities Facebook has merged with or acquired.
How does this massive company manage its day-to-day operations?
Let’s find out with this list of related essays.

Analysis

Given the scope of operations, it’s natural to assume that the company undergoes through a multitude of challenges and
To put it simply, the social network is mainly preferred in English-speaking countries, which inhibits operations in a variety of regions. The company struggles to enter markets which are already saturated with local social networks. Japan and CIS countries, for example, have regional equivalents which are far more popular in their respective regions.
Nevertheless, Facebook is a goldmine of business insight. Analyzing it will definitely offer an extensive look into how large social media networks need to function in order to turn a profit.

Nonetheless, Facebook is here to stay. It is a site that will never diminish, neither domestically nor internationally, and will only improve in the coming years through future acquisitions and intelligent business strategies.

Just in sight of the third millennium and a set number of years before the impending apocalypse sat the year of 1995. Perhaps the strongest force in society’s journey into the age of information and technology—technology specifically aimed at the general public—it was this year that the dominance of computers skyrocketed. In no exact order, throughout 1995 the DVD was announced, eBay and Yahoo were founded, Hotmail was started, the first wiki was produced, Windows 95 and Internet Explorer were released by Microsoft, USB, Java, and JavaScript were released, the dot-com boom occurred, Amazon.com opened, and the first wholly animated film, Toy Story, was released, setting up the scene for years of technological advancement and competition (“The Year 1995′).

In this 1995 version of the growing world of 5.7 billion people and increasing numbers of gigabytes, like the newly introduced technological conceptions, I, too, was born. Now, my birth obviously was not as world-changing as the technological advancements going on at the time, but it was world-changing to me because, well, I wouldn’t exactly be in the world without having been born, now, would I? Not that my birth really mattered at the time, though, because in less than five years the world was predicted to end in a computer-failure-based form of societal fall.

Such predictions and beliefs—shared by my own aunt and uncle, who were major computer users at the time and continue to be—were silly of course, but I was still raised believing the world would end through computers. Naturally, I do still think that is a possibility—not through a computer failure, of course, but through the likelihood of computers becoming self-aware in a Terminator movie style, but without the aspect of time travel. Despite rumors of computers failing worldwide due to their predicted inability to differentiate between the years 1900 and 2000, with pleasure—or misfortune; take your pick-I, after being thrown chaotically into the world we live in as a mere babe, had to grow up these advancements and conveniences like many of my peers did once the millennium changed and yet another predicted apocalyptic date became irrelevant past.

While my classmates were drowned by the initial flood of video games that overtook the ’90s babies, for instance, I remained untouched by the zombie-state-inducing trances of video games that still plague even today’s kids. Of course, at the time I was jealous of these other kids being permitted to live in the technological world around us while I, living on a farm in the middle of nowhere like Courage the cowardly dog, had to bide my own time playing outside in my own imaginary world rather than the virtual one. Looking back, however, I’m always very thankful that I did not fall in love with the technology around me—I like to think I am better prepared for when society does fall by means of either computer-, nuclear-, or zombie-related measures.

Unfortunately, until said fall of society –which, with any luck, will not actually occur in my lifetime—such gratitude does not always do me well these days. The truth is, we live in a technological world that, admittedly, I am not always up-to-date with. This is awfully problematic because being technologically savvy is necessary to be competent in our culture and society—I mean, I only just learned how to set up one of my email accounts to automatically forward everything to my other email for goodness sakes! So, to correct my ineptness of keeping up with the Kardashians and kilobytes alike, I have, regrettably, become a follower of technological trends.

Despite every attempt to remain unique through the same methods every young individual in first-world countries use these days, I have transformed into yet another example of a classic 1995’s baby: a soul more dependent on social media and Google, god of information, than on a real-life set in real-time. I cannot be blamed, though. My birth year was the turning point between Generation Y, the now young adults who are expected to manage this computer-controlled culture, and Generation Z, the now kids and teenagers who are growing up knowing more about how to operate and navigate the entire worldwide web better than their grandparents know how to change the television from satellite mode to movie mode or maybe only my grandparents are that out-of-date.

As such, the year of my birth, like those around it, left only two options: board the bandwagon or get left behind. No one can get away with the latter, really, so I’ve had to jump on the technology train just like everyone else, despite my distaste. Don’t get me wrong, though! Pessimism is only for show. The fact is, while sometimes I do wish I’d grown up “back in the (perhaps mythological) days” my grandparents and even parents speak of, I am incredibly lucky to have been born when I was. Since 1995 alone, technology has made bigger leaps than any of my growth spurts did.

Yes, much of the technology I’ve had to grow up with is overrated, cliché, or just plain Neanderthal—I, personally, am referring to eight-tenths of social media and nine-tenths of video games, though that may just be the good ole’ fashioned farm boy in me speaking. Despite those unfavorable aspects of technology, basically enslaving us to the computer geniuses and their blueprints that run our little daily lives, the age of information and technology is a blessing. These are the days of faster, more efficient technology and expertise based on its availability.

Everything important to me I can keep on a flash drive, ready to go when I am rather than relying on old fashioned filing cabinets and everything being hand written. Energy sources, medical practices and procedures, transportation, communication-basically everything we need to thrive as a society-benefit from these technological advancements. So, thank you, 1995. Thank you for the push into the next century we now call home and for preluding the direction myself and my life would take while still holding on to your Amazon.com, USB, wikis, and—my personal favorite-introduction of animated movies.

When it comes to indirect lobbying, social media has opened up as a new avenue for interest groups to communicate to members and to reach new audiences. It is in the best interest of a special interest group to reach the maximum audience for the smallest investment. Social media presents itself as an answer to that challenge. An option that someone has while engaging with social media is to use it for ideological purposes or to follow causes. For example, if PETA has an instagram account and someone chooses to follow it, they can repost a call to action (PETA March for Animals Walk), a donation drive, or membership drives. There relevance to members is heightened when a group has a local account “PETA_Miami305” which gives even more specific information that is relevant to those who are members/interested in the cause.  Facebook as a social media platform has been fraught by allegations of fake news and data mining. I have had people in my family post fake political news when Obama was president and during this presidency. In an ulterior way, Facebook has the ability to create groups, which allows for people to self mobilize and organize a a political event and invite everyone. Benefits to utilizing social media are various. When it comes to cost, it is much more effective than printing flyers, for instance. Another benefit in utilizing social media is reaching a vast audience.

In addition, it allows for instantaneous access to those who follow the group. If, for example, there were live developments for a case or vote, a platform like Twitter would allow for live tweeting as well as a live broadcast on periscope. In addition, it allows for people to take a cause on their own and act as a representative or repeater for the group. An example would be if the Sierra Club did not have a chapter in Miami and someone took it upon themselves to mobilize. Some of the negative aspects include lack of moderation. One aspect of lobbying is a crucial but I believe borders on deceptive. As a random example, let’s say an interest group who wants to affect environmental laws states “plastic that is not recycled and thrown into the ocean breaks down into carcinogens” but might leave out that the percentage of plastic that does this is low and leaves out relevant elements regarding the data. Such stats might be shows in a square on IG (as that’s the format) in bold colors to draw attention. Does it work? Yes. Is it ethical? Depends who you ask. Interest groups have an agenda, and are likely to use data to support their cause. By packaging it in a simple “sound byte” type way, it may trick someone into believing something that isn’t true.

There has been a point in someone’s life where they did not feel good enough. Everyone experiences not having the perfect body image, the perfect grades, or the popularity. Based off of a newsletter named “Healthline” they discovered that over 350 million people in the United States suffer from depression. One thing that does not help is social media. Social media provides a “perfect” standard that people believe they must stand by. For example, the apps Instagram and Snapchat, allow anyone to cover up a person’s flaws with filters. Instagram provides anyone with an account to create their own profile, post their own pictures, follow people they admire, and receive followers back. However, Snapchat provides several frivolous filters. These filters allow the users to change the shape of their face, the way their eyes look, and become silly animals. According to Sherry Turkle, who is a professor of the social studies of science and technology, says that “not only do we let our phones determine what we do, we let it change who we are.”

Social media creates a life inside a person’s phone that people become addicted too, and believe that it is the way to live, look, and act. Social Media is used way too much whether people like it or not. According to Sophia Smith, who is the author to a BBC article, states that the over use of social media is debated whether it is a mental health disorder or not. As of January 2018, the WHO (World Health Organization) identified video gaming as an addiction. Before discussed even further, there are different types of social media that needs to be explained. The first social media that is the most popular is Facebook. Facebook, allows a user to post their own posts defining their day or thoughts. Facebook also allows pictures to be uploaded where their friends can like and comment on them. The number of friends a person has, defines their popularity. The next most popular social media app in the United States is Instagram. Although Instagram is very similar to Facebook, it is used in a different way. Like Facebook, pictures are posted where likes and comments are received, posts on Instagram are not allowed. However, a “Story” can be uploaded where a picture or video can be seen up to 24 hours with writing that announces one’s feelings. Once again, the number of followers a user has identifies how popular that person is, it is just more obsessed with, to where people feel the need to purchase the followers they have. On Instagram, it allows people to create their own theme on their account, meaning that they can only post pictures that relate to the theme they picked. The last social media to be discussed is Snapchat. Although it is not the most popular, it has its impacts. Snapchat creates filters that enhances the users face. Some of them can be “cute” animals such as the dog filter that changes a person’s nose with a dog nose and adds dog ears on top of the human head, and others are simple, such as, eyelash extensions and has the effect of a light self- tan.

Depression is a mental disorder that makes a person feel unwanted, insecure, and extremely sad. Depression makes a person lazy and want to stay in a dark room all day. In the United States 350 million people are depressed. There are several ways to help with depression even if it has obstacles. There is a website called “Suicide Forum” that helps with anxiety, depression, and suicide. On the website under each tab, there are several different articles from separate authors explaining their advice and their thoughts on what each disorder is. Suicide Forum provides an online chat room where people who are afraid to meet in person can talk and chat all over the world. The chat room allow people all around the world to exchange advice and personal problems. Although they open themselves up to complete strangers, it makes them feel like they are not alone, and that they have someone who cares for them. Depression in teens is very common, 3.1 million teens have been depressed and experienced what it felt like. Teenagers in this generation tend to interact with their phones and social media. A very common thing in high school is cyber bullying. Teenagers feel the need to bully their peers through social media. Not only will this cause depression, but in most cases even suicide. Katie Hurley created a short article based on how parents can help their teens with depression. Teenagers feel like they can not go to their parents and they feel alone but reading Hurley’s article showed wonderful advice on how make teenagers feel comfortable talking to their parents’.

Social media can not only affect teenagers, it can affect anyone in different age groups. Based on the people seen on Instagram posts or Snapchat stories, others tend to “want” to be them. People see the way others post and the number of likes and wonderful comments they receive, therefore, they feel the need to post like that. According to Sherry Turkle’s TED Talk video, she explains how people let phones control what we do. In the beginning of her video Turkle describes how a simple text can change a simple mood. Her example was her daughter sending a good luck text. Now this doesn’t just mean a positive text, it can be negative texts or negative posts they see on their phone. Although posts and texts are just through a cellular device, it can either ruin a persons’ day, or brighten it up. In conclusion, social media should not interfere with our daily lives. People should limit the amount of time they use for social media.

This article shows the study of social media as a source of news and their ways to practice it. The writer explains the impact of social media on media consumption and reliability of the information available on social media networks. As the main stream media has grown its interest in social media. Bits of Information on social media grown an interest in news. Therefore, journalists looking for a new top story or news use social media, as all the events break first on social media. But there are downsides to it, not all social media networks rely on social media for their reports and not all the news flashed on social media real. This makes the consumer question the reliability of other main stream media and social media break outs. Marketing of these main stream media and giving them insight to the data rises problems for the consumers and government because they can be easily manipulated. The reliable sources to show how consumption of social media needs to be filtered and creates a troublesome impact on social media and news media norms.

In this Dunlop explains how in digital era most of the youth is online, which brings forth both challenges and opportunities for their health and well-being. It is easy for the companies selling good or bad products to reach the youngsters via online platforms, especially social media. The writer explains through a real-life example that as smart-phones are part of every day life everything is accessible on it, and social media being on it means prone to marketing messages all the time. Further writer explains that how social media is responsible for the obese among the younger people ranging from twelve to nineteen years old.

Advertisements from Oreo cookies to Burger King chicken sandwiches etc. are held responsible for this. According to the US research market sixty three percent of the youngsters posted pictures on social media with unhealthy beverages, which is then capitalized by these beverage companies because of this consumer driven market on social media. This explains how social media platforms like Facebook are the growing market of games with approximately thirteen million gamers or game players alone in Taiwan. Online game players are driven with a sense of competition among each other, which leads them to pursue in being better than the other or being the best player among all. This not only gives them the sense of joy but also comes fame and encouragement from gamer society. But not all are top players, many to be the best spend a lot of money on online-games.

Author asks questions like “do sociality, intercity, challenge, and novelty influence flow?”, “does flow influence purchase intention?” and “does price perception influence purchase intention in Facebook game stores?”, in order to observe the various players and acquire information that players who experience captivated by enjoyment of game are usually willing to pay a high price. The Authors, in this report describe, how social media plays an impact on the society, both in a positive and negative way. Social media has given the customers more power than they ever had, whereas, reputation of big companies is at stake by any rumors or bad news spread on social media. For instance, Papa John’s employer in New York wrote “Lady Chinky eyes” at a receipt of Korean-American lady. This was posted and shared on twitter, which went viral and then was picked up by the local newspaper, later ended on the national news such as CNN.

Many researchers on public relation call this “crisis communication’ through social media, meaning the lack of proof behind any information shared on social media, which can be emotionally driven, driven by hate or lack of solid data-driven research. In this report on Facebook users based social behavior and personality, Eunsun attempts to explain and discover the common relationship norms in communication between its fans and brand on Facebook, and to understand how consumer are perceived irritation when influenced through these norms. According to a semantic network analysis 7 out of 8 brands operated through communal operated relationships.

Along with Facebook other social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram have also emerged. In fact, social media market industry in 2013 reported that 86% of business and marketers consider social media as one of the most crucial tools for a successful business. Many pages on Facebook are based on impressions or unites of branded content. These impressions are then further counted as the measure of the viewed content by consumer to the advertiser. An advertiser pays the media for the advertisement of their product in the traditional mass media, Likewise, social media gives a similar offer, but it also provides another advertisement impressions option, where they create an environment to exchange information, opinions about products and services. Then a Brand fan page with fans will receive all the newsfeed automatedly. After that fans respond by liking or commenting on the content.

This article, authors attempts to explain the recognition of for supporting any cause of social media, in this case Facebook. Social media being the best platform to spread the word out, raising money for donations, charity and causes is easy to approach. For example, a very famous cause was the ice bucket challenge organized by Amyotrophic Lateral sclerosis Association. This challenge depicted the power of social media. In this, after being challenged, people had to donate between 24 hours after completing the challenge. Many famous people and celebrities shared their videos and pictures. Millions after that joined this movement, and ALS raised more than 100 million worldwide. This showed how recognition of people among their community, society or nation increases the donations and grows voluntary intention.

My motivated discussion question for the Cultivation Theory asked if the theory would stand the test of time, maintaining television as the most influential media source influencing social perspective. When the theory was developed in the mid 1960’s, television was a huge source for all media and entertainment in a way that could not be delivered by any other media, such as newspapers and radio. However, in today’s society, the internet has become another huge influence on social perspective, and could be argued that it was more influential than television Although television has its benefits that are unique to its type of media, the internet has been increasing in popularity It has also been improving with the advancement technology.

Some benefits of television include its resonance, which means it delivers messages that are often congruent with viewers‘ experiences. Television is also mostly factual, meaning that news channels deliver very reliable information, which is not always the case on the internet. Viewers trust television, and therefore, assume many of the values and assumptions that television give them. The impact of television can also be small, but very significant. A simple fictional television show may seem innocent, but everything a person takes in is influencing them in some way, affecting their perspectives on social reality. Television also makes it easy to mainstream their values and messages, through often dominating other media sources. Although television is a huge influence, the internet has been gaining popularity and has become another contender.

The internet is easily accessible, whether accessing it through a smartphone or a portable computer. In today’s modern society, internet is available to almost everyone almost all of the time. It is also reliable, like television, in regards to the different news websites. A huge reason the internet is heavily influential is because of social media networks. When something big happens in the world, social media is the first to hear about it. It has become a fact that when an event occurs, it will hit social media before it reaches television on a reputable news channel. These social media outlets include Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and more, People, especially teenagers and young adults, rely on the internet for their news In effect, the ideas and messages on the internet impact the perspectives people have about social reality in a huge way, People spend much more time on the internet than they watch television in today’s world. Therefore, although television will always have its unique qualities, I believe that the internet will keep increasing in its influence

Social media has become a commonly used medium throughout the past ten years, however it leads to adverse effects on the users. Social media is shaping the public in many ways, due to it being global and easy to access, it is important to know the effects. The world is changing through social media and the digital age, social leveling, and zombification of the users.

Social media, a simple and convenient way to keep in contact with family and friends, also have an alternate effect on the user’s actions and personality. The problem with social media’s effects began in 2003, when Myspace first started. As more social media platforms open, the zombification of the users gets continually worse. Since Myspace began, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Tumblr, and more have become popular and commonplace as they each were created. More social media is introduced, calls are being ignored and responded by texts, which made the socialization humanity needs, diminish. Some users can keep people far away from losing contact, but overall makes those and other relationships lose their momentum.

Since 2010, the amount of social media users has nearly tripled as of 2018. In 2010, there were just under a billion social media users (97 million), which has now gone up to 3.196 billion users (Perrin). The digital age is changing the way the world interacts, as the use of social media increases. The digital age has killed the concept of older mediums (books, letters, newspapers, etc). The newer mediums are considered livelier. Boluk and Lenz state “…in the digital age, although print culture is still a preeminent epistemological model, the quality of “deadness” in a text may be part of the ontology of digital culture” (Boluk and Lenz 144). While text may inherently seem more reliable, the “deadness” of it seems to cause the view to alter and for the digital age to surpass text.

Social leveling is a concept in which the population craves to not be noticed, showing herd behavior due to technology’s influence. Social leveling can result in getting unaffordable phones, doing something just because it is popular, and overspending on clothes or cars; just to all be the same. Boluk and Lenz state loss of reason from lack of control is how terrible social changes transmit pompously through the social body (Boluk and Lenz 143). Essentially, the popularity of certain prospects goes through a social system. Social media’s echoed influence causes users to do or say strange things for simply no reason other than because it is seen as the norm. Humans are social animals and crave acceptance. As the users become more surrounded by the aspects that are deemed popular or important at the time, they begin to rationalize making the poor decisions due to wanting to be uniform. It is referred to as social learning, and when members of a social group perform a task, the user’s brains reward them for following in the footsteps of the other members. Conformity in this manner is dangerous, because commonly what is circulating as popular to do, is negative in one way or another.