The Strengths and Weaknesses of Facebook as an E-Tool

Facebook is a highly effective marketing tool because of Facebooks user base alone, with 2.85 billion monthly active users, it is very easy for a company to reach a broader audience.

·Companies can turn their customer base into a community by engaging with their audience on their Facebook page through the comments section and post behind the scenes pictures and videos which helps their customers feel connected to the product in question.

·Facebook also makes it incredibly easy for anyone to set up an account for their business, so even if a person isn’t well versed in technology and can’t set up a website, they can easily use Facebook as their online hub and can start right away to post information and photos about their product to gain a following.

·Companies can also track Facebook users' data through the use of cookies and therefore see what a user is interested in which helps them to target their audience.

However, the disadvantages (weaknesses) to using Facebook as a marketing tool would include:

·A company will be open to negative feedback through user comments, should a company make a mistake in an ad campaign, or a product is not up to consumer standards, then millions of users will be able to post negative reviews and give the company a bad reputation, however a company can use this feedback to be constructive and make changes where necessary.

·A company must have a team in place to engage with their customer base, if the customer base feels their queries are being ignored, it will not promote loyalty to the brand, thus having a team in place to manage the page is important, however this leads to more expense for the business as salaries must be paid.

·The age demographic on Facebook currently is an older demographic, so should a company wish to reach a younger target audience, their efforts would be better spent on another social site like Instagram.

·Competition on Facebook is steep, marketing platforms executed via Facebook are open to unfair and devious interference by competitors. Rival business owners can easily pose as “friends” or “fans” to gain access to your content and begin to post unsavory content of their own to your page and while it can be dealt with quickly, it can also give your business a bad image. Photos, artwork and other images posted to your site are easily accessed and reused by visitors and can show up in domains that aren’t your own and that you haven’t given permission for.