The Facebook Game Changers

This post is an expansion of the comment I put on the Going Social Now blog: Facebook growing up. Advertisers to fall in love – Going Social Now

There are some BIG things going on at Facebook HQ.  And I don’t mean this (although that’s happening too, but its not as important as what I’m talking about).

Facebook’s game changer #1: The ability to see impressions and clicks <tweet this>

I particularly like the inclusion of impression/click data within Facebook as a means to move more of the digital media and perhaps overall media budget over to social. I always felt it was limiting to say that social is only about engagement. While that’s hugely important and obviously the secret sauce, social can also do many other things including generate awareness.

I believe with this data social should now have a firm seat at the media/advertising table.  And when they get that seat, it won’t be hard for the budget makers to start moving more and more budget into social marketing.  Notice I am not calling it social media.  I’m talking about fueling the social marketing campaigns that do engage customers, that do build brand, but also now measurably build awareness.

Facebook’s game changer #2: E-commerce plus payment system equals cash money yo <tweet this>

As soon as Facebook rolls out their payments platform, we’ll never joke about them being unprofitable or barely profitable as was the case in 2009 again. E-commerce is rampantly finding its way within the walls of Facebook and when you can easily purchase through your Facebook payment account, they’re going to quickly displace Paypal in that category.

Think about that for a second.

You already trust Facebook with pretty much all of your data except your social security number and your credit card information.  I personally would welcome the ability to “pay with Facebook”, creating a one-click payment system so I don’t have to pull out my credit card every time I want to make a transaction.  People are going to sign up for this in droves and when they do, we’ll see spending within Facebook take off.

In fact you’re already seeing many brands rolling e-commerce into Facebook and that’s a trend that is going to grow dramatically in 2010.  You combine that with payments and you’re talking about a money making bonanza not seen since Google figured out how to monetize search.