Facebook is 10

Who could have predicted that an online social network would change the world?

In February 2004, Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg launched “The Facebook” as an exclusive social network for Harvard students. Gradually, Facebook was opened to more users and by 2006, anyone over 13 could join. By December 2013, Facebook had grown to 1.23 billion monthly active users. (Source: Facebook Newsroom).

Click here to read Key Dates in Facebook’s 10-Year History and click here to see the first article ever written about Facebook.

Facebook not only changed the world, it changed the way we interact with our customers and prospects—at least for those of us who take advantage of the opportunities Facebook and other social media sites offer.

At minimum, every small business should have a profile on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter—customers and prospects expect to see you there. Social media is important for building brand awareness, connecting with customers and prospects, sharing your blogs, articles, videos, infographics and other content created for your SEO campaign.

Google’s High-Priced Nest

In January, Google paid 3.2 billion cash for Nest, a company that designs and manufactures sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled, self-learning, programmable thermostats and smoke detectors.

Marcus Wohlsen of Wired wrote, “The value Google sells its customers—that is, advertisers—lies in its peerless understanding of our online behavior...One area of human behavior Google has yet to colonize as successfully is what we do when we’re not directly interacting with a screen...That in theory changes with Nest.”

When asked if customer data will be shared with Google, Nest founder Tony Fadell said, “Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.”

There was a time when Google put users’ privacy first—from 2002: Google uses cookies to track user trends and patterns to better understand our user base and to improve the quality of our service. Google may also choose to use cookies to store user preferences. A cookie can tell us, “This is the same computer that visited Google two days ago,” but it cannot tell us, “This person is Joe Smith” or even, “This person lives in the United States.” Now, compare that to Google’s current policy.

Considering Google’s privacy policy evolution, some question Fadell’s assurance that Nest’s privacy policy won’t change. Tech industry blogger Sam Biddle tweeted, “If your house is burning down you’ll now get gmail ads for fire extinguishers.”

Super-Targeted PPC Ads

Did you know that Pay-Per-Click Advertising can be targeted exclusively to people who have visited your website? These are people who have already demonstrated an interest in your products and services.

The large majority of first-time visitors to a website leave without completing a conversion. One visit to your website is usually not enough to close the deal. A PPC Retargeting campaign brings people back and gives you more opportunities to convert your prospective customers.

Click here for more information about PPC Retargeting (aka Remarketing) and click here to read a Retargeting success story.