Strategic Leadership: Analysis of Facebook and Role of Mark Zuckerberg

This report analyzes the strategic leadership of Facebook, including SWOT and PESTLE analysis, the Six Point Plan, and the role of Mark Zuckerberg. Recommendations are provided to maintain the company's position as the most popular online social media platform.

Running head: STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
In this report, the aim of the discussion will be to study the strategic research of Facebook, by
using the SWOT and PESTLE analysis, as well as the Six-point plan of Facebook and
strategic leadership role of Mark Zuckerberg towards the company. Recommendations will
be suggested so that the company can learn from the mistakes and maintain its place as the
most popular online social media platform.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
PESTLE Analysis of Facebook..................................................................................................3
Political Factors......................................................................................................................3
Economic Factors...................................................................................................................4
Social Factors.........................................................................................................................4
Technological Factors............................................................................................................4
Legal Factors..........................................................................................................................5
Environmental Factors...........................................................................................................5
SWOT Analysis of Facebook.....................................................................................................5
Strengths.................................................................................................................................5
Weaknesses............................................................................................................................6
Opportunities..........................................................................................................................6
Threats....................................................................................................................................7
Six Point Plan.............................................................................................................................8
Strategic Leadership Role..........................................................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
In this report, the aim of the discussion will be to study the strategic leadership of
Facebook, the largest used social media platform. The analysis of PESTEL as well as SWOT
will be done here, along with the Six Point Plan and Strategic Leadership role will be
discussed and analyzed. Recommendations will also be provided, to understand the strategic
role in the leadership in a better way. Facebook is an online social media and social
networking service provider company based in America. The organization was founded by
the Mark Zuckerberg, as well as by Harvard College students and friends Eduardo
Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Mark Zuckerberg is the
Chairman and CEO of one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide. The company
was founded in 4th February, 2004, and is based in Menlo Park, California. The number of
employees in the organization is more than 30,000 (Van Dijck, 2013). The revenue generation
of the organization is almost US$56 billion, which has the income of the subsidiaries namely
WhatsApp, Oculus and Instagram. The organized is considered as one of the Big Four
technology companies, which includes Amazon, Apple and Google. The name came from the
directories given to university students of America, namely face book (De Salve et al, 2016).
PESTLE Analysis of Facebook
Political Factors
1. The spread of fake news – Facebook is a social media platform which is used by
more than 2 billion users globally. But spreading of fake news, mainly in 2016 U.S. Presidential
Election, where it was alleged that even foreign actors were involved, which actually hampered
the brand image of the organization.
2. Restrictions in conservative countries – The platform is banned in some countries,
where it is used just as a tool to gather people against the political parties and spread
misinformation.

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3. Political ties and agendas – The online platform, as connected with billions pf users
globally, so it can affect the thinking of the people towards the politics, the government and
elections, just like it did in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, where it acquired the personal
data of 87 million Facebook users, without informing them.
Economic Factors
1. Boosting the economy – The company helped people in getting almost 4 million jobs
in 2014 as well as providing an economic impact globally of more than US$200 billion.
2. Losses 0f US$100 million – The rise in the US dollar has affected the cost of
Facebook a lot in terms of foreign currencies. As the company is expanding, the cost and
expenses are also increasing for the company.
3. Plummeting stocks – There are fluctuations in the stock prices of the company,
which forecasts that advertisers are losing faith in the organization, which was actually triggered
after the in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.
Social Factors
1. A lost core value – The core reason of this social media platform is to connect the
people around the world, but it has become a marketplace to sell items, with the platform full of
advertisements, focusing more on business and company pages rather than the status of the
near and dear one’s.
2. Loss of quality – The breach of trust in the data leakage during the 2016 U.S.
Presidential Election lost the quality of the most famous online media platform since its inception.
Technological Factors
1. More data safety needed – As there are security concerns regarding the safety of the
data, more precautionary measures are need to save the personal information of the people to
not the count of users worldwide.
2. Expansions – Facebook owns other platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, which is
very much familiar among the young users and in turn, helps the company to earn more revenue.

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Legal Factors
1. More about breaches – Data breach is affecting the brand image and reputation of
Facebook globally, after the in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, where the personal data of 87
million Facebook users were breached.
2. GDPR – European Unions’ General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been
introduced in Europe, where Facebook has faced some issues with following the guidelines.
Environmental Factors
1. A small carbon footprint – Facebook, till date, uses coal power to produce power
in their data centers, apart from using gas and nuclear. They should shift to use renewable
energy processes to reduce the usage of carbon (Isaak & Hanna, 2018)
SWOT Analysis of Facebook
Strengths
1. Healthy balance sheet with strong financials – Facebook maintains a strong
financial terms with the big financial houses globally, which helps the organization to
flourish effectively and efficiently.
2. Global presence – The presence of the social media platform on worldwide basis
helps to attract the people and become their users, thus helping the company to grow rapidly.
3. Unlimited potential in terms of integration with other applications – The
company gains advantage with the unlimited ability or capability of associating with other
companies.
4. User addictive interface – The pages of the social media platform are very much
user obsessive, which helps to attract and engage more people to this most popular social
media platform.

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5. Vast spectrum of products capturing user engagement on multiple fonts –
Huge range of products are available in the social media pages of Facebook, thus engaging
more people with the online social media platform.
Weaknesses
1. Advertising is the only major revenue source – Revenue generation through the
help of advertising is the only way in Facebook, thus showing more advertisements in the
pages, which reduces the interest of the users to browse the pages for more amount of time.
2. User privacy and security scandals – The breach of trust during the 2016 U.S.
Presidential Election hampered the brand image of the organization, who failed to secure the
private data of around 87 million users.
3. Negative publicity and dented company reputation – The data privacy scandals
lead to the negative publicity of the company, thus hampered the reputation and fame of one
of the most popular companies around the world.
4. Crackdown on third party apps – The restraint on the third party applications
used in social media platform also hampered the growth of the company.
Opportunities
1. High potential innovation and venturing into unchartered territory – There is a
high possibility for the company to invest into any untapped marketplace, through the help of
some innovative ideas.
2. Enhancement of mobile advertising market with supporting tools – Facebook
helps to provide advertisement through mobile devices, as most of the people nowadays uses
smartphones.

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3. Venturing into augmented reality and artificial intelligence – Facebook also
possess in investing into improved reality as well as fake intelligence globally.
4. WhatsApp and Instagram – Having the subsidiary applications like that of
WhatsApp and Instagram will help the company to attract more people around the world and
earn as much is possible throughout the world.
Threats
1. Uncertain user loyalty – The users who are using the social media platforms can
change their mind and might shift to other rival online social media platforms.
2. Global presence subjects to country based law compliance – As the company
has presence in most of the countries globally, the agreement regarding to law varies from
country to country, which hampers the business operations of Facebook.
3. Frequent privacy concerns – There are security concerns related to leakage of the
data of the users of the Facebook, which hampers the reputation of the organization and
increases negative publicity.
4. Subjected to internet security risks – Security can be hampered as the hackers
can breach the personal data of the users, thus increasing the concerns related to internet
security.
5. Pressures on the Company to curb user engagement – There is a constant
pressure on the organization to check the engagement of the users who are using the social
media platform for other purpose.
6. Failure of the company to control fake news problem – Another threat to the
company is the failure to control the distribution of fake news and information, which is

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performed even in the in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election by the foreign actors (Brooks, Heffner
& Henderson, 2014).
Six Point Plan
1. Articulate – The companies must point out the components of the brand for
communicating it through the help of social media. This will help the companies to
feature their uniqueness to the customers, which will help them to have a competitive
edge over others.
2. Connect – Facebook helps to connect almost every nook and corner of the world via
their online platform. The companies also can connect them with their customers as
well as employees to share any kind of information.
3. Engage – Engaging customers to involve in the partnership is a major part of the
social media marketing of the company. It will help to share the qualities and features
of the product or services marketed by the companies.
4. Influence – Companies also can influence the public or the end customers via their
social media platform, which will make the bond between them stronger and help the
companies to perform in the marketplace more effectively and efficiently.
5. Integrate – Companies can also mix and merge the experiences of the customers after
using the product or the service on the social media platform of Facebook. This will
help them to perform the after sales service to the customers.
6. Rejuvenate – The companies have to reconstruct or modernize the content posted in
the social media platforms in continuous basis, so that it will help to retain the old
customers as well as attract new people to the organizations.

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Strategic Leadership Role
The term strategic leadership refers to the ability or capability of a manager to signify a
strategic or crucial vision for the company, as well as to motivate and assure other people to
achieve that vision. It can also be termed as making use of the strategy set in the management
of the employees of the organization. Coming to the company mentioned in this report, the
management of Facebook encourages or motivates its users to create a network of
relationship that will help the users to stay in touch with their contacts. Another factor which
helps the organization to stay at top is the role of Mark Zuckerberg in strategic aim on the
advertising part. The company are able to do marketing campaigns by gathering the user
preference data on the social media platform to identify and target major demographics based
on the preferences by the users. Another major factor is the leader characteristics possessed
by the head of the company, Mark Zuckerberg. He believes in to aim on impact, moving at a
fast pace, being fearless or bold, being open minded, and ability to build the social value.
This all are the characteristics possessed by Mark Zuckerberg to lead a team which has a
major role in globalization that the modern world is facing (Schoemaker, Krupp & Howland,
2013). Facebook follows an aggressive working culture and style of management that help to
pushes the employees of the organization to innovate as well as improve the social network
motivation on continuous basis. The move fast core values of Mark Zuckerberg help
Facebook to construct more things on a faster pace ant learn the things quickly. His build
social value is a center value proposition that helps to indicates a future orientation. His
prosperity to take action is an another major leadership characteristic, which helps the
organization to take actions at the right time, though this actually failed in the time of 20156
U.S. Presidential Elections (Latham, 2013).

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Recommendations
Facebook is the most popular online social media platform, but still there are some
flaws which should be rectified to enjoy a competitive advantage over others. One major role
is that to secure the personal data of its users. One major breach of data happened by
Cambridge Analytica during the time of 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, when the personal
data of 87 million users of Facebook was obtained, without informing them (Cadwalladr &
Graham-Harrison, 2018). This type of breaches will hamper the brand image of the
organization, and will increase the negative word of mouth publicity, which will turn the
users of using other social media platforms other than Facebook. Maintaining the privacy of
the users is the first and foremost thing which the company must follow at its highest level.
And the company must focus on to some other revenue earning methods other than earning
the same from advertising. This will help them to diversify their revenue earning methods,
which will help the organization to attract new region as well as new people (Parsons, 2013).
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that the Facebook has the capability or
ability to stay at the top of the online social media networking platform, but to retain that
position that for years will be a difficult task for them, until and unless they are rectifying
their mistakes and flaws, which will help Mark Zuckerberg and his organization to have a
competitive edge over others and run the business operations flawlessly.

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