Facebook Advertising | Social Media Marketing

Businesses are gradually realising the commercial potential of 250 million Facebook users and opening shops inside Facebook. The latest shop to open doors is 1-800-flowers.com founded by Jim McCann who started his first retail store in 1976 in New York. Now the online flower retailer has launched an e-commerce store which they claim to be the first fully functional commercial store front inside Facebook.

Registered Facebook users can now order all kinds of flower products from the online florist and gift shop without ever leaving the social network environment. The shopping itself is quite easy and straight forward. First you choose a nice bunch of flowers from their catalogue; the prices vary from $29.99 to over $100. Then you enter your US based zip code and delivery date; next your contact details and the recipient’s details and finally your credit card numbers and you’re done. So, for instance as the lovely Sandra Bullock here had her birthday 4 days ago you could have sent her some red roses straight through your Facebook account. Very handy indeed! Sandra has about 30.000 fans on Facebook by the way!

The 1-800-flowers.com Facebook Shop has been built by a relatively new network developer, Alvenda who are based in Minneapolis. Alvenda was founded just last year by Wade Gerten, Brian Howe and Lou Abramowski. So far the Facebook Flower Shop has attracted 1,905 fans, me included, but I’m sure it will gain lots more as the news start spreading. Currently 1-800-flowers accepts payment with all major credit cards, but as (if) Facebook introduces its own internal currency (see Facebook Money Is Coming) you would be able to make purchases using that as well. If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed or ReTweet.

250 million people seem to love Facebook. Here’s a different, humorous view by Julian Smith and his friends…

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As advertisers are increasingly interested in Facebook advertising, ad revenues are not the only source of revenue for Facebook. Facebook started testing virtual currency just a few months ago so the company could also be profiting from the sale of virtual goods. With these “virtual money credits” Facebook users could carry out transactions in certain sub networks. Websites view alternative payment methods as a way to accelerate the sales of the virtual goods that can be an important source of revenue. On Facebook there is the potential for a currency exchange market similar to the hugely popular virtual world, Second Life. Second Life users have been using their Linden Dollars for quite some time now and they seem to be working fine in that particular environment. Linden Dollar rates fluctuate based on supply and demand, but over the last few years they have remained fairly stable. For 1 Us Dollar (US$) you can get about 260 Linden Dollars (L$). While Second Life’s currency is used to purchase virtual items (obviously), Facebook’s currency could be used to purchase real-world items as well; here is a huge potential for the recently updated Facebook Marketplace as well as Facebook Auctions and similar services.

Second Life has almost 15 million registered users from over 100 countries and a fully functioning economy with more than $300 million Linden Dollars transacted annually. As they have successfully implemented the use of virtual money in their environment, you might even speculate with the possibility of using Linden Dollars successfully on Facebook. This would create the biggest online marketplace in the world that would have it’s own currency. Science fiction? I don’t think so.

Michael Jackson died last Thursday in his home in Los Angeles 25th June 2009. The 50-year-old musical genius was preparing for what would have been a series of 50 mega concerts starting July 13 in London. He was the most talented and the most kind musician that ever lived. We will miss him dearly. Michael Jackson will live forever in his music.
…and apparently on Facebook as well. There are 495 personal Michael Jackson accounts on Facebook. Most of them are named Michael Jackson or Mike Jackson. None of these are the most famous Michael Jackson though. The King of Pop is represented by over 540 Fan Pages and 548 Groups containing millions of people. There are also 323 Michael Jackson applications and over 500 Michael Jackson-events. The five biggest Michael Jackson Fan Pages have over 7.5 million fans and the six biggest Michael Jackson Groups have about 400,000 members. Judging by these figures there is no doubt that Michael Jackson will become immortal and take his place alongside Elvis and Marilyn Monroe who have over 600 Fan Pages and over 1000 Groups (combined) on Facebook. Long live the King and the King of Pop!