What's Zuckerberg's agenda behind Timeline?

MUMBAI, INDIA: Late last year, Facebook introduced Timeline, a profiling feature, on its platform that was optional to users till today. Starting March 31, Facebook will make it a part of default profile settings for users- individuals, businesses or brands that have created profile pages on Facebook.

For starter, Timeline allows users to tell their individual stories in a time order with pictures, photos, comments and life events. Though Timeline hasn't got wider acceptance among users as they find it a bit complex, it is likely to be a big game changer for businesses, advertisers and marketers that are using Facebook as a platform for brand promotions and ad campaigns.

According to Singapore-based Ken Mandel, Buddy Media's Managing Director, Facebook’s social media and advertising platform offers brands and advertisers the best of digital and traditional advertising integrated into one global platform with close to 1 billion consumers.

What's the rationale behind Facebook’s Timeline?

“By making this shift into Timeline, Facebook is strengthening its commitment towards brands and marketers by creating mission control for brands by providing them a larger creative canvas in addition to opening up new premium advertising offerings that truly combine paid, earned and owned advertising into one seamless experience,” Mandel says.

“This is exactly why Buddy Media recently acquired Brighter Option, the number one Facebook Ads API company, so we could integrate paid advertising into our Social Media Marketing Suite,” Mandel adds. Buddy Media provides social enterprise software solution to advertisers globally.  

However, one might argue that Timeline is just a feature but for the social networking giant it's a strategic road to build a Facebook ecosystem. According to Internet World Stats report, Facebook had 799,092,160 users as on December 31, 2011 and with every passing day this number is growing, making it almost unignorable for marketers and advertisers.   

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Is Facebook trying to be the new Google on the Internet? 

For Facebook, this growing number is big enough to encash revenues from businesses and campaigners. In fact during the Facebook Marketing Conference, it had put forward new tools such as Reach Generator, ad unit and Timeline to woo marketers. 

With Reach Generator, brands have option to pay Facebook and in return get a guaranteed News Feed distribution of up to 75 per cent of their fans. Also, it defined every content posted on page to be the new ad unit.

According to Facebook, content that brands post on Facebook pages reaches only about 16 per cent of their fans. But with the new tools such as Reach Generator, ad unit and Timeline, Facebook is making a big point to advertisers and brands, how they can engage with fans and increase reach through its platform.

“Facebook is definitely benefiting from the two aspects that normally do not go together which are reach and engagement. Mass platforms that reach millions of people, such as the television, are great reach mediums but usually generate lower level of engagement from its target users,” Mandel explains. 

Further, “Platforms that engage deeply with consumers usually do not provide a high level of reach. But Facebook is able to effectively combine these two disparate aspects into one single platform by reaching over 845 million deeply engaged consumers, where more than half of them are active daily users,” he points.  

Will Facebook be ultimate choice for marketers in India?

After the US, India has the second largest number of Facebook users followed by Indonesia. India has 43,497,980 users compared to 43,060,360 in Indonesia as on February 1, 2012. The Asia region is seeing a major growth in mobility and Internet that offers ample opportunity to online and social media related businesses.    

According to Mandel, India and Indonesia have the largest Facebook populations outside of the US, giving active brands in this region an increasingly strong reason to be social.

“As more Asian companies build relationships with their consumers through Facebook, the new Timeline allows them to tell a compelling story about their brands through a series of emotive words and pictures,” he reckons. 

“Combined with changes to the advertising options, Facebook now allows users and their networks to get more involved with their favorite brands on a personal and engaging level. An exciting change is that the post becomes the advertisement, blurring lines between content and advertising, thus leading companies away from giving a hard sell mindset to one of enabling engaging conversations,” Mandel concludes.