With a reputed $100 billion price tag on its head, Facebook is definitely the new ‘It’ thing for February. People, and that includes iGaming affiliates, are talking about it almost everywhere you look.
It was only a few years ago that this Social Media site was declaring losses, but the launch of their ‘Like’ button became a lucrative phenomenon. With businesses and sites jumping on the network to advertise their products, it took off and made gargantuan profits – over $1 billion pre-tax to be accurate.
But rather than focusing on what this flotation could mean for investors and the lucky employees that started when Facebook was in its infancy, I want to focus more on the attitudes of some advertisers and social media enthusiasts and what they perceive the next chain of events to be.
So I set up a small chat between a few key industry people and asked them what they thought.
One social media guru who runs several fan pages said, “From Google through to Zynga, this has been going on for years and it never leads to any changes – it’s just hype about nothing. When you get that big, you can’t stay solo forever.”
However, a small business owner agitatedly responded, “With Facebook looking to squeeze every penny from its masses and now selling out to the corporate world, small businesses like mine will end up paying for it in some way. When you float a product, the whole world knows when you’re making money and when you’re losing money – if Facebook’s user base slows its growth, they’re going to come after us to make up the pot.”
Finally a female executive who manages her clients’ Social Media retorted, ‘Look at Zynga, on its first day it dropped 5% in share prices – it is the beginning of the end for Facebook.’
Over the course of a day and approximately 26 people providing their views, it seemed that the flotation was cause for panic rather than celebration. Social Media is becoming the backbone of many of businesses within the affiliate industry and is even used in SEO, so when the biggest Social Media outfit has already alienated most users by publishing sensitive information without approval – I for one am not looking forward to the next step.
My predictions: If Facebook starts ramping up its prices for advertising or charging me to keep a business fan page, I will be one of the first to wave goodbye. Although it may be a great way to market to my target audience, I could get better results on PPC and maybe soon, a better price.
About the Author
Daniel Laming spent over two years working as an affiliate manager for GTech and Red Interactive, but recently decided to pursue a role as a full-time affiliate working on website BigGainsNoPains with a team of five, focusing on Online Casino and Online Bingo offers.