Facebook’s continual expansion has been well noted by all in media and marketing and now the world’s biggest social network has added a feature that should give advertisers more information to target ads to specific people and groups.
The centerpiece of the new Facebook strategy is a ‘Like’ button. Other websites can install the Facebook ‘Like’ button and once users click on it, the information from that website is shared with their friends. The idea is that the ‘Like’ button will map out connections between people and their interests. This will allow Facebook to gather much more focused information about people’s individual tastes – a very valuable (potential) resource for Facebook advertisers. Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerburg has described the new strategy as “the most transformative thing we have ever done for the Web”.
So far just over 70 partners have signed up to embed ‘Like’ buttons or other customisation widgets on their sites, including ticketing site Fandango.com and CNN.com. With over 400 million users, Facebook is an enormous online community – and while ad revenues are rising (expected to hit $1 billion in 2010), the company is still only six years old and many believe has yet to reveal its potential in terms of making money.
The ‘Like’ button will also mean other websites should benefit from traffic [driven to them by Facebook users].

You may also like: