Analysis of Facebook as a Social Media Platform

Running head: ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AS A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
Analysis of Facebook as a Social Media Platform
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1ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AS A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion....................................................................................................................................2
2.1 History of Facebook..............................................................................................................2
2.2 Development of Facebook.....................................................................................................2
2.3 The Business Model of Facebook..........................................................................................3
2.3.1 The Companies associated by Facebook........................................................................3
2.3.2 Services offered by Facebook.........................................................................................3
2.4 Business Strategy of Facebook..............................................................................................5
2.5 Research and Development...................................................................................................7
2.6 Sales and Marketing Cost......................................................................................................8
2.7 Revenue Sources of Facebook...............................................................................................9
2.7.1 Advertisements...............................................................................................................9
2.7.2 Payments.........................................................................................................................9
2.7.3 Workplace.......................................................................................................................9
3. Future Plans of Facebook..........................................................................................................10
4. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................10
5. References..................................................................................................................................11

2ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AS A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
1. Introduction
With the rise in the trends of social networking websites, there have been a major form of
rise of the social media websites. A wide form of research on the usage of social media sites by
the people have shown to have a major form of growth in the recent past years (Curty & Zhang,
2013). The usage of different kinds of social media networks such as Instagram, Facebook and
WhatsApp has increased on a global basis. This has helped in playing a major role in the lives of
the people. They have helped in applying a major form of role in the lives of the people. Based
on the conduction of review of the choices of different people, it has been seen that Facebook has
been considered as one of the most preferable social networking problem. Facebook is regarded
as one of the most preferred website by various users (Leung et al., 2013). This is not because of
the huge number of users but also due to an incredible analytics suite. The social networking
platform has the capability to analyse their customers and their changing behaviour based on a
micro-level based on the ever-changing algorithm that has been inbuilt within their website and
the mobile applications.
2. Discussion
2.1 History of Facebook
Facebook is considered as one of the most popular social networking website that was
launched in 2004. The company was launched by Mark Zuckerberg. Initially the membership of
the website was limited to the students of Harvard. Later it was expanded to different other
colleges within the Boston area and other universities in Canada and United States (Van Dijck,
2013).

3ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AS A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
2.2 Development of Facebook
With the launch of the social networking website, it had gained much popularity in the
initial years. The nature of Facebook gradually propelled from various educational institutions to
anybody who would have a registered email address. The social networking platform is a free
and open source platform, which enlarges their profitability based on advertisements and raising
of revenue. The features of the platform have continued to develop in the recent years (Bicen &
Uzunboylu, 2013). In the recent developments, the users have been provided with different new
form of facilities such as gifting their friends, posting advertisements and thus developing their
personal applications.
2.3 The Business Model of Facebook
Facebook has a history of claiming a huge customer base. They have a record of over
1.13 billion active users through which they have known to have claimed around 27.63 billion of
revenue in the year of 2016. Based on recent reviews from people residing from all over the
world, Facebook has become the most popular social networking website (Baden-Fuller &
Haefliger, 2013). Though there are different other kinds of social networking websites in the
world such as Instagram and WhatsApp, but still the organisation has maintained to establish a
broader customer base in the world. They have also been able to collect immense form of
revenue in each year.
2.3.1 The Companies associated by Facebook
Ever since the inception of Facebook, the organisation has a record of continuously
changing their model of business and thus innovating new kinds of features and services in order
to meet the demands and expectations of their customers. The massive business model of