Category: Effects of Social Media

Using Social Media to Promote Political Awareness Through the Example of the Million People March

The Republic of the Philippines has been called the ‘promise of Asia’ and the ‘sick man of Asia’ alternately ever since its search for stability, prosperity and development began (Manrique & Manrique, 2017). This review attempts to show how the use of social media in one country, the Republic of the Philippines, has grown and has been used to encourage political awareness and participation among the Filipino masses. The country is ranked among the most technologically savvy in the world but ironically is also considered one of the most corrupt countries as well.

The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution is one of the biggest and most admired revolution that the world has seen. It reminds people that a peaceful assembly is still possible in a complex and aggressive society. Yet again, on Aug 26, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos came together to let their voices be heard in the ‘Million People March’. The Million People March was the first of a series of protests in the Philippines calling for the total abolition of the Pork Barrel fund, triggered by public anger over the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam. The supposed Million People March was the first of a progressing arrangement of dissents in the Philippines requiring the aggregate abrogation of the Pork Barrel store, activated by open displeasure regarding the Priority Development Assistance Fund trick. Starting calls circled through online networking, primarily on Facebook and Twitter, to gather a challenge on August 26, 2013 at Luneta Park in Manila and additionally different urban areas across the nation and abroad. A few media analysts consider this as the primary ever monstrous rally in the Philippines called and sorted out generally through online networking channels (Revano, 2016).

The social media-fueled rally dubbed the ‘Million People March’ was emulated on a smaller scale in other cities across the country and in various cities around the world where there are large concentrations of Filipinos. A few called for the ouster of Aquino, the then president at the time of the PDAF scam, and there was a widespread fury with politicians. The protesters, armed with placards and pig masks, called for a change in leadership and the abolition of the pork barrel. This showed how social media and technology in general can start a change in the world.

The issue posthumously known as the ‘pork barrel scam’, is a political scandal involving the alleged misuse by several members of the Congress of the Philippines of their Priority Development Assistance Fund, a lump-sum discretionary fund granted to each member of Congress for spending on priority development projects of the Philippine government. It is estimated that the Philippine government was defrauded of some ₱10 billion in the course of the scam, having been diverted to Napoles, participating members of Congress and other government officials. Aside from the PDAF and the fertilizer fund maintained by the Department of Agriculture, around ₱900 million in royalties earned from the Malampaya gas field were also lost to the scam.

The pork barrel has been an item in Philippine appropriation laws for decades, despite intermittent criticisms of its profligacy and corruption. It was reportedly introduced when the Philippines was a colony of the United States (Nograles & Lagman, n.d). The history of the Philippines shows that colonial domination by the United States distorted the country’s economic and political system, co-opted Philippine leaders to colonial policies, and corrupted the democracy project after the Filipino revolutionaries lost the Philippine-American war of 1887. In fact, the United States bred the oligarchy that persists to the present in the form of political dynasties. It’s colonial political innovations also enabled the growth of patronage-oriented political parties.

The defenders of the pork barrel, mostly members of the congress, have annually sponsored this appropriations item, vigorously justifying it as part of the congressional function and an important component of national development. In fact, in the midst of calls for its abolition, an undated article justifying the pork barrel system entitled ‘Understanding the Pork Barrel’ was published on the congressional website by no less than the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. His treatise stars with the rather dismissive statement that “The public cannot appreciate what it does not understand”. Furthermore, the Philippine version of the pork barrel gives legislators the post-enactment discretion to allocate lump sum funds to projects and beneficiaries selected by them, which makes it very difficult to regulate and almost impossible to audit.

In light of the protests, the Filipino hacktivist group PrivateX defaced at least thirty government websites early on August 26, hours before the main protests. These include the websites of the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Embassy in Rome, Italy. Hacktivism or hactivism, a portmanteau of hack and activism, is the use of technology to promote a political agenda or a social change (anonymous, 2019). With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to the free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements (Mikhaylova, 2014)

On its Facebook page, Anonymous Philippines claimed that the websites of the Office of the President, Senate, Bureau of Customs, Department of Finance, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Public Works and Highways, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Bureau of the Treasury, Department of Energy, Department of Education and Department of Environment and Natural Resources were affected because of disfiguration of the sites by the PrivateX (Inquirer, 2013).

After the series of webpage defacements, the Department of Science and Technology said there was a need for a secure Web hosting government agencies and services. It noted that a July 12 administrative order mandated state agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations to host their websites under the new Government Web Hosting Service to be provided by the DOST.

Anonymous Philippines, hacktivist, left a message on the Bureau of Customs home page as the one left on the other websites. The message read: “1987 Philippine Constitution. Article III, Section 4 states that “no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances”.

Works Cited

1. anonymous. (2019, March 10). Hacktivism. Retrieved March 2019, from Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
2. Inquirer, P. D. (2013, August 27). What Went Before: Anonymous Philippines. Retrieved March 12 2019, from Philippine Daily Inquirer: https://technology.inquirer.net/31159/what-went-before-anonymous-philippines#ixzz5hl8FXwa7
3. Manrique, C. G., & Manrique, G. G. (2017). Social Media’s Role in Alleviating Political Corruption and Scandals: The Philippines during and after the Marcos Regime. Political Scandal, Corruption, and Legitimacy in the Age of Social Media, 18.
4. Mikhaylova, G. (2014). The “Anonymous” Movement: Hacktivism as an Emerging Form of Political Participation. Retrieved March 2019, from archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20171019175804/https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10877/5378/MIKHAYLOVA-THESIS-2014.pdf?sequence=1
5. Nograles, H. P., & Lagman, H. C. (n.d). Pork Barrel. Retrieved from Republic of the Philippines House of Representatives 17th Congress: www.congress.gov.ph
6. Revano, T. F. (2016). Empowerment Technologies for Senior High School. Manila: Mindshapers Co.,Inc.

The Social Media Impact, Mental Health Problems And Access To Weapons As The Main Reasons For School Violence

Throughout the years, school violence has not only left scars in our society but in our entire nation. Other than home, schools are the single most important place in the development of teenagers and children, schools are supposed to be a safe haven. Teens and children are taught how to grow socially and school provides opportunities to reach milestones to become the people we will be today and in our future. Simple things such as religion, sexuality, and race can lead straight to bullying in todays society. More than one out of seven students have been victim to assault and physical assault in their own school. Even today the impact of school violence is not fully understood more than the cause. School violence such as bullying and school shootings puts all hope and development to an abrupt stop. School violence has become a leading concern in the 21st century, the current rise in school violence is caused by increased exposure to social media, decreased access to outside mental health resources, and simple access to weapons.

Social media allows us to have the social freedom we desire, but in this we find that many people take this to their own advantage to purposely hurt and bully others. From violent video games, violent media, to problems in their own home, teens have taken bullying to a whole other level. Teen brains are not fully developed until the age of 21 and what they see and take in now will forever affect the way they think. Most Media today focus’ and often glorifies the violence going on around the world today. With millions of teens watching this, they absorb all of this information. Violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, and Call Of Duty can, in some teens, trigger the emotional part of the brain called the amygdala which emotes feelings such as depression, anger, aggression, and impulsive behavior. These emotions can often take control for the better or worse. Aggression and impulsive behavior play a huge part in the bullying of others because of they way that the perpetrators think. “Brain changes, aggressive behavior, poor decision making.” The things that teens or children take in play a huge part in their decision making, especially in school. Social media is the perfect platform for bullies to target others.13.6% of teens and children are involved in some type of cyber bullying, whether they are the victim or the perpetrator.

There are plenty of methods of cyber bullying being used in and out of school in social media today. Beginning with harassment; the use of text messages, direct messages, or email are used to target or embarrass the victim. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook are the best places to spread rumors or create fake accounts to mock or ridicule others. Arising from these harsh comments and ridicule, children and teens become self conscious and think that they will never fit in. These feelings usually lead to depression because the thought of people thinking badly or maliciously toward you is overbearing. The constant backlash from bullies leaves a bruise every time on those who cannot handle it, unfortunately there are many who have committed suicide because of this. Exclusion is another form of bullying, this makes specific targets feel like they don’t belong anywhere or fit in to any group. Outing is the sharing of victims personal information or secrets. “Instead of controlling your child’s online access, focus your efforts on educating your child about the risks of cyberbullying.” All of these types of bullying on social media may make a permanent mental imprint on some people, leading to various unwanted feelings. Many teens today may not be able to speak to anyone about it because they feel like they’re alone. Some can’t even afford to seek out therapy or mental health resources. It is of upmost importance that those being bullied have access to any type of help.

Mental health is important for adolescents because it helps them achieve wellbeing and helps to have a positive mentality throughout their years into adulthood. Teaching adolescents how to deal with coping, good judgment, bullying and resilience is important for the development of their character and how to handle issues that will come now or in the future. However, not many teens can have access to mental health resources due to various reasons. “Over 15 million children and adolescents need psychiatric help, but only about 8,300 child and adolescent psychiatrists practice in the United States.” There has been a shortage of physiatrists in the US which means that not many adolescents can find mental help which is a huge problem. Acts such as the Affordable care act causes socialized health care, and in that, it has caused that type of environment. Therefore companies lack competition and have no necessity to outcompete one another causing rates to drive up and making people choose from few mental health care companies. Medicaid is not provided by the federal government like the affordable care act, Medicaid is provided from states themselves. It is funded through tax payer money and Medicaid helps promote those who cannot afford the healthcare options that don’t cover their symptoms or needed help. The real question is what can schools can do to prevent violence inside of school and how to provide help to those who need it.

Since teachers and faculty have the experience and training working with each other, they can play major roles in preventing school violence in their own school. Counselors and school officials can begin by addressing and trying to figure out the amount of bullying or violence happening in their school under the radar. They should also monitor and offer help to those who seem distressed so that their emotions do not grow into something that can potentially cause violence or harassment. Many schools do not offer or even pay much mind to the mental health of their students, it is a silent epidemic. “Up to one in five kids living in the U.S. shows signs or symptoms of a mental health disorder in a given year. So in a school classroom of 25 students, five of them may be struggling with many issues such as depression, anxiety, etc.” Research also shows that 1 in 10 students have severe emotional issues that may affect the way they act in school and at home. Teachers can inform and communicate with parents of anything they may come across so that parents can also be more vigilant with their child. By addressing the amount of violence and emotional development in school and putting in our part, we can reduce the number of violent cases in schools, especially with weapons.

In today’s society, access to weapons has become very easy in adolescents.” Almost one-third of all homes contain guns with estimates that 50 million Americans own 300 million guns. Despite continuing educational efforts, the majority of these guns are kept loaded, unlocked, and potentially accessible to children.” In homes, parents usually keep their weapons or firearms at hand, whether it be a kitchen knife, or a firearm kept under the bed or in the closet. Research has showed that if a gun is stored in a home, the risk of the child stealing it or even suicide increases majorly. Adolescents are prone to taking risks, at this stage of brain development it is shown that they are drawn to risky behavior. Therefore, keeping weapons at hand would not be such a good idea. Parents must play a part in keeping these firearms safe in their own house, they shouldn’t keep their weapons at hand for their children to get a hold of. It is as easy as storing it in a drawer unloaded locked with a key or simply keeping it u loaded wherever they are storing it. As previously said, adolescent brains are not developed until the age of 21, therefore the child or teens mindset is prone to making risky or curious behavior. Mental health is also something that has to be paid mind to in your child.

Teens may act without thinking in most cases. If teens have emotional issues they may see a gun or weapon as a easy way out or a way to harm others. Most mass school shootings usually come from troubled teens. Nikolas Cruz, 20, Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooter, has many bullying issues. Cruz was ostracized by his own classmates, made fun of, this turned him to become violent and volatile. His emotions and feelings became so overwhelming that he began practicing shooting whether it was in video games or make belief, but what led him to all of this was bullying, not enough parental guidance, and easy access to weapons in his own home. Adam Lanza, 20, Sandy Hook Elementary Shooter, was also bullied. When he attended Sandy Hook Elementary, he was taunted, and assaulted. This got so bad that his mother, Nancy Lanza, considered suing the school. All of this led up to him beginning to play violent video games, he racked up thousands of headshots in a couple days alone. He had many emotional issues such as aggression, depression, etc. He was prescribed medicine to help him with his emotions everyday. He also has easy access to his mother’s multiple guns which is what led him to the shooting itself. All of these shooters were bullied in young age. It is very important to treat others kindly because you never know what one “small” insult can cause a person to feel or do. “Remember, you are responsible for the safety and well-being of your children. And since guns are found in more than one-third of all American households – even if your family doesn’t have them, chances are your child will visit a house that does.” Weapons are very dangerous and should not be exposed to adolescents in their own household or others. It is best to keep them concealed and away from young teens. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

In conclusion, school violence is caused by a variety of things, from social media, to no access to mental health, and easy weaponry access. It may leave scars in our nation, but as a nation all should learn how to work together to put all of this to a stop. The nation needs to learn all of the causes of school violence so everyone can make schools the safe haven they are supposed to be. Throughout the centuries school violence has become worse and worse, but everybody should put in their part to make this nation a better place for the children of the future. Through these experiences, there is always a lesson, free will does not come without a cost, the job is figuring out how to better it so bad things can be prevented from happening

Facebook As Perfect Social Website

Facebook is the most famous social network website that people can connect across countries and all over the world. Facebook has around 800 million active users. It focuses on social relations among people who can share their common activities, ambitions, interests, and experiences.

But in the last few years, Facebook is found to be losing clients because of security problems as data attacks. It became a source for sharing news than of social network as usual.

In this research, we intend to discuss the reasons of this attack as well as Facebook features.

1. INTRODUCTION

A social network is a service website which allows users who have similar interests to contact together and share information, photos also videos.

In addition, people use social network in personal endeavor to communicate by many forms of media to contact and show their interests as well as their life events. The most famous social networking websites are Facebook, Google, Twitter.

Also they can use social network for business purposes as marketing. Enterprise can use social networks as their main platforms like Socialcast and Yammer.

Facebook is a famous social network service launched in February 2004, operated and owned by Facebook Inc.

2. HISTORY OF FACEBOOK

Facebook website founder is Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz in 2004 who were students at Harvard University. First, membership was restricted to Harvard College students, during the first month, around half of the undergraduate population was registered on Facebook service.

Mark Zuckerberg and others promoted Facebook website. After that most of United states universities use Facebook.

Day after day, Facebook became an interesting investment for entrepreneurs, Facebook became incorporated in 2004.

3. FACEBOOK AS PERFECT SOCIAL WEBSITE

Facebook is the most effective social media marketing platform. Here we will discuss reasons of why Facebook is the most effective social media tool:

1. Facebook is the most famous social network. As there is around 1.4 billion users and visit it around 900 million users per day.
2. Facebook users encompass all demographics. If the users are trying to reach various types of users from different ages, Facebook is the suitable choice.
3. Facebook is “sticky.” users spend average 40 minutes per day. As time spent on Facebook means more interaction with business there.
4. Facebook is growing. Facebook dominate the use of social media as well as it shows no signs of slowing.
5. Facebook advertisement service is affordable. Facebook advertisements average cost is around 5.99 dollars per thousand impressions. Also users can control the budget so the marketing costs are expected.
6. Facebook advertisement service is highly targeted. As businessmen can target wide audience range factors as locations, ages, and interests.
7. Facebook allows reach out to website users. Facebook allows users to show advertisements to people who visited the business website previously.
8. Facebook allows spreading from Friends to Friends of Friends. If the target customers see Facebook posts and advertisements, Facebook Friends will be able to see them too, addition effectiveness to Facebook market efforts.
9. Facebook helps measuring results. Facebook Insight tools allow tracking the Facebook market results, as advertisements and posts. Also the user can get detailed information about prospective customers and how to engage him with business at Facebook and number of likes and compare to past measures, engagement type ( comments, shares).

4. FACEBOOK DATA LACK AND ATTACK

Facebook has around 50 million accounts breached by an unauthorized access harvesting attack. It was expected that around 40 million may compromised so in all 90 million of the users reset their credentials.

This breach attack is the most dangerous in Facebook history and there is a trial to determine if the attackers misused accounts or stole users private information.

The attack origin is still a type of mysteries, but the hacker accessed digital keys of the users and the attacker has full control of accounts of victims, including log in the third-party apps that use Facebook Login. First, the administrators said there is no need for users to change passwords. But users have troubles in log in as some of them forgot their password.

5. FACEBOOK BREACH NATURE

In 2018, was the year of the Facebook biggest terrible events in terms of security and it faced massive data attack breach where millions of users accounts were manipulated by political interests contributing Brexit and US president Donald Trump election; the spiraling of the ‘fake news’ epidemic and Facebook’s initial pooh-poohing of its seriousness as well as fears that Russian hackers have infiltrated Facebook social network.

The breach attack was discovered on 25 September 2018 and 50 million accounts were affected. After that Facebook turn off View As feature as it conducts a thorough review.

The administrators said that the breach exploited complex interaction of many issues in Facebook’s code.

Most users didn’t know they have been affected until they were asked to log in.

6. THE BREACH REASONS

Facebook has not been forthcoming with the details. It is hard to know if the administrators have no information about the hackers.

According to an official release, a feature on Facebook called “View as” had a bug and hackers exploited it.

This “View as” feature for users, they can see their Facebook account page just as someone else would see it. Hackers used “View as” feature to log in as account holders.

The administrators say that the breach was because of three bugs that compounded the security flaws in View as feature, so it opens a hole for hackers to steal information. These bugs were faced in 2017 when Facebook changes affect video uploading feature. In the last year, Facebook added a new feature to make it easy for users to post “happy birthday” videos, and this open the hole for security flaws that led to this breach.

7. FACEBOOK TREND

Facebook is one of the top three of return on investment (ROI) between all the social networks. By comparison, 63.5 percent of respondents ranked Twitter and 40.1 percent ranked Instagram among the top three ROI drivers.

The start of Facebook was in 2014 with around 60 million users. Then Facebook continue to develop in incredible increasing number of users until the top in the start of 2018 it reaches 220 million users but the drop was at the mid of 2018 when the breach occurs the drop started gradually with around 100 million users.

Facebook said that there is investigation around the hackers and the problem has been solved. In 2019 there is light increase and we are all waiting for the results of the investigations.

8. FACEBOOK PLATFROM OF SHARING NEWS THAN OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION

On Facebook, the largest social media platform, news is a common but incidental experience, according to an initiative of Pew Research Center in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Half of users of Facebook users -adult, 47%, knew their news from Facebook. This percent is around 30% of Facebook population. Most American adults do not go to Facebook searching for news, instead, the majority of Facebook news users, 78%, get the news when they are on Facebook for other reasons.

However, this survey introduced an evidence that Facebook exposes users to news either they want or not. So 38% are the only percent of Facebook news followers who say that Facebook is an important method for them to get news, and 47% among users who follow the news less often. Younger adults are engaged with Facebook news. That far outpaces the 20% that they account for among the users who do not get news on the site.

Younger adults between 18 and 29 year old get their news from Facebook from topics at roughly the same levels as older age groups, turn there as often for breaking news and deem the site as important a source of news.

9. FACEBOOK FEATURES

The main feature in Facebook is the ability to organize newsfeed and contacts. If using personal profile like a marketing tool (that accept all friendship requests) also the user can sort out friends list as family members. Facebook main features are:

1. Organize Friends List. Open home news feed and under explore tab on the left-hand side you will see friends list through it you can add friends and organize categories.
2. Groups. The user can utilize groups as part of marketing strategy. Groups are a nice method to grow the interested community for product and services. This allows to connect and provide information to members.
3. Watch Party. The ability to have a group of streaming videos for your members to view and comment on. The user can share videos on Facebook from different pages. The user can create a watch party, so the post will look like a normal post, but the next step will allow selection of videos. This can be through the following:

   Search – look for related videos on Facebook

   Pages – choose video from page

   Watched – select videos that you have previously watched on Facebook

   Groups – select a posted video in a group

   Live –into the party

   Saved – choose from saved videos

   Suggested – pick video from videos

4. Notification to members. The user as an admin for the groups has a tool to support Facebook by asking direct question. If members break the group rules, Facebook will notify members about the broken rules and add notes about removed post.
5. Filter the content. Any member at the group can filter the content he see, and can choose from notified posts, from friends or highlights. Groups became a great place to organize contents, notify members and get real-time value.
6. Scheduled Posts. The user can schedule contents to be posted by choosing inside Facebook Groups, like Facebook Page options!
7. Facebook Group Insights. The insights are going to give admins only at this stage, information about the growth of groups as well as membership details.
8. Messages. The third party application are called Many Chat, so the user will be able to again build list and talk to subscribers in real time using mobile devices. Facebook messenger has a great open rate compared to email marketing. Facebook encourages adding messenger button to the posts and adding a call action to the messenger. This allows making conversions and engagement with fans.
9. Royalty Free Music. There is no need to worry about posts or videos uploaded to be banned from Facebook because of copyright. Under the publishing tools, there is an ability to find the sound collection. The site contains many tunes available for download, add to our videos and all royalty-free.
10. Live streaming to multiple pages. Live streaming is the strategy to connect with fans on Facebook. Facebook can encourage users to have live streaming and create their own show. Broadcasting content to your audience increase users expertise and promote engagement. A related feature is the ability to make live streaming to many pages, which is called cross-promoting.
11. Scrapbooking. The scrapbooking feature allows parents to create photos scrapbook album for children and the parents are only who can tag children and share images in the scrapbook, the parents can customize the privacy settings on photos.

10. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGES

There are lots of things many users wish Facebook do. As stopping political advertisements, because of trying to enforce gamed rules seems to have trouble than it’s worth. We wish Facebook get rid of all the News Feed rankings altogether.

Here we will discuss some changes that Facebook should change as:

• Add ephemeral controls for News Feed posts

  In the last year, Mark told investors that he thought ephemeral video Stories will become more popular among users than posts in feeds. After that, Mark admitted that Story sharing on Facebook grew slower than expected, and started emphasizing the emergence of a “feed-plus-stories world.” But users think Facebook has one part of the equation right as people want to share ephemerally in News Feed, without trying to persuade them to share more videos instead of text. We as Facebook users love to have the ability to make our posts disappear within 24 hours.

• Give the option of reporting irrelevant notifications

  If the user is absent for example for three days and he got Facebook emails notification that friends shared a link or posted a new photo so this is disturbing thing as the user can’t take a break from irrelevant notifications. Facebook should give the users the ability to manage what represents irrelevant notifications for them.

• Share details about time spending on Facebook

  Facebook should join phone makers as Apple on the Facebook mobile app, to allow users see how much time they spent on the app, and allow receiving a push notification when they spent more than desired amount of time.

• Offer a subscription option in exchange for no ads

  That’s one reasons of Facebook last attacks. Facebook has managed to irritate the group who could affect the company’s operations as lawmakers. Facebook failed to stop Cambridge Analytica from obtaining users data, this put Zuckerberg to be judged in front of Congress for the first time, with lawmakers handing down threats of regulation if Facebook couldn’t make more to protect the privacy of their user.

• Set ethical advertisements policies for other firms

  Facebook should change the way they address users privacy concerns that might have harmful effects on the rest of the world. Limiting the targeted advertisements as well as giving the users the control over their data are steps towards the right direction.

The creation of Facebook direction should be to respect users privacy by providing features that can enable marketers to deliver targeted advertisements ethically will be a balancing act.

11. CONCLUSION

A social network is a service website which allows users who have similar interests to contact together and share information, photos also videos.

Facebook website founder is Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz in 2004 who were students at Harvard University. Facebook is the most effective social media marketing platform.

Facebook has around 50 million accounts breached by an unauthorized access harvesting attack. It was expected that around 40 million may compromised so in all 90 million of the users reset their credentials.

This breach attack is the most dangerous in Facebook history and there is a trial to determine if the attackers misused accounts or stole users private information.

REFERENCES

1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-things-facebook-needs-to-change-now-to-restore-confidence-according-to-security-experts-2019-02-25
2. https://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the-role-of-news-on-facebook/
3. https://nealschaffer.com/facebook-features/
4. https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/05/4-ways-facebook-should-improve-in-2019/
5. http://techgenix.com/facebook-data-breach/
6. https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/facebook-statistics/
7. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/stock-price-history
8. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/facebook-data-breach-questions-access-tokens-third-parties
9. https://www.web.com/blog/grow/social-media/9-reasons-facebook-is-the-most-effective-social-media-marketing-tool
10. https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/social-network
11. https://www.slideshare.net/Ayesha839/facebook-ppt-phase-3
12. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271013529_Facebook_usage_socialization_and_academic_performance
13. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691612442904?journalCode=ppsa

History And Scope Of Facebook Advertising

Facebook is one of the leading social network platforms, founded in 2004 with a mission to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” (Facebook, 2018). This suggests that Facebook is an important marketing tool to reach target audience.

From a marketer’s point of view, Facebook can be seen as a bridge between the organization and individual people. Due to Facebook’s rapid growth, 3 years after its introduction Facebook has launched “Facebook Ads” with business purpose to advertise content (Facebook, 2018). Businesses can create their ‘own Facebook page’ in order to promote themselves and at the same time send out messages towards their audience (Facebook, 2018).

Additionally, marketers can display content in forms of banners (photos or video) on the ‘newsfeed’ of targeted audience (Facebook, 2018)

The first advertising on Facebook has started in 2004, through the possibility of purchasing ‘Flyers’. Those could be purchased by local small businesses or students in order to target selectively between campuses. Such ‘Flyers’ – adverts were featured on the ‘Facebook’s homepage’ and managed by Facebook team itself.

Following the increasing demand and growth in user numbers, Facebook introduced ‘Flyers Pro’ on a CPC basis. With enhancing the ability to select targeted audience more precisely and giving the option to set a maximum bidding price, businesses quickly discovered the great potential of ‘Flyers Pro’ as advertising tool.

In 2005 Facebook starts selling ads on a CPA – cost per acquisition basis, with its major client Apple, whom is willing to sponsor growing number of Facebook ‘Apple group’ members. Progressively in 2006, Facebook has made a strategic alliance with Microsoft, in which Microsoft digital solutions is the ultimate provider of banner ads and sponsored links.

In 2007 Facebook introduces its mobile version at the same time as its own Advertising platform – Facebook Ads, which lets businesses to create their own business presence (Facebook, 2018) on social media. Furthermore, Facebook improves the possibilities for companies to target better their audience based on geographical location and language. Additionally, in 2009 Facebook launched ‘connection targeting’, ‘like button’ and ‘self-served Ads’ in order to enhance its scope in online advertising. This gave business owners and marketers the opportunity to create, set up and manage their ads on their own and watch the engagement This led to a global expansion of advertised content displayed on the Facebook.

In 2010 Facebook introduced its mobile app, that contributed towards users spending more time using the Facebook platform. With people spending more time on the platform, there is more information accumulated for marketers in order target their audience more accurately. Similarly, more metrics regarding social contexts are available in order to track the performance of advertised content. During this time several lawsuits have been filed against Facebook for violating the privacy of Facebook users, and certain changes had to be implemented in order to protect its users and their data.

Since 2010, Facebook and its users have been growing at rapid rate improving the scope of marketers with every new feature. For instance, ‘Facebook places’ and ‘connection marketing’ enables marketers to determine the location of their potential customer. Following the expansion, Facebook has launched its ‘sponsored stories’ where marketers can point out and highlight a certain user action, for example when engaging with a specific brand. Once Facebook presented ‘mobile ads’ in 2011 the ROI was increased exponentially.

Similarly, marketers’ scope has been rising in 2012 with ‘Social graph’ and ‘Facebook exchange’. The ‘Social graph’ is containing connections between users, their likes, hobbies, preferences and activities related to their shopping habits. With ‘Facebook Exchange’ businesses are able to target people that have already visited their website, with more personalized and accurate messages. Through the use of first-party and third-party data, marketers can easily assess to whom they want to display their ads. Another enhancement of Facebook’s advertising was the introduction of ‘unpublished posts and dark posts’ suggesting that marketers can specifically choose who will / will not see their advertising posts. With the acquisition of Instagram, Facebook reveals advertising potential to a whole new audience.

In 2013 Facebook has launched a revolutionary ‘Lookalike audiences’, which enables marketers to reach new potential customers that are sharing similar characteristics either demographic or psychographic as their current audience. This feature has majorly improved the scope of Facebook advertising as businesses were able to grow their potential target audience based on given parameters. Facebook also released a brand-new tool ‘Conversion Pixel’ and ‘Website Custom Audience Pixel’ that immensely improved the marketing scope of the platform. The Facebook’s ‘Conversion Pixel’ gave businesses’ ability to track the audiences’ interaction with website and consequently direct the marketing actions to pursue specific marketing goals. At the same time, this tool allows marketers to measure the effectiveness of their advertised content and calculate the return on investment from their ads. This can show ads that are attracting most of website traffic, engagement and interest, but also shows ads that are not performing well and need to be adapted or replaced. With the introduction of ‘Website Custom Audience Pixel’ Facebook has enabled marketers to build custom audience parameters based on people, whom either visited the website or took another action using ‘Facebook Pixel. Such tool can help marketers tailor their advertising content specifically according to the previous actions of their customers. Another enhancement of Facebook’s advertising was the introduction of video ads. Video ads are very engaging and attract more attention than display of pictures or text. Through video ads, marketers can build an emotional connection with the ‘viewer’ / potential customer and build a strong relationship.

In 2014 Facebook acquires a big social network platform called ‘WhatsApp’, showing Facebook’s growing power and ability to lead the online advertising. On Facebook’s platform marketers can benefit from many new improvements such as ‘Premium Video Ads’, ‘Three levels campaign structure’, ‘Audience Network’ and ‘Carousel Ads’. Within the ‘Premium Video Ads’ the video ad is played as soon as it appears on the screen without sound and stops if its scrolled past. Once viewer clicks on the video ad, sound starts playing and video appears on full screen. This type of advertised content shows how viewers interact with the ad and is easy to measure. The ‘Three level Campaign structure’ contains three elements (campaign, ad set and ad) that make up the Facebook advertising campaign. Within this structure marketers are able to specifically target audience and create an ad that will be attractive for such audience.

It also allows marketers to set parameters for its audience such as location, interests, age, gender but also the budget for the ad, timing and placement. Similarly, the introduction of ‘Audience Network’ greatly improved Facebooks marketing scope as it allows marketers to run campaigns not only on Facebook’s platform but also within mobile apps. This tool is aiming to drive app engagement and increase app install. Those campaigns can be displayed in three different shapes, banner, interstitial and native.

The Relationship Of Privacy To Facebook’s Business Model

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, since then Facebook hasn’t stopped growing. Facebooks model relies on user’s personal information; what pages users shares and likes. Facebook believes that everything you upload become their property, like images, videos, posts, music and so on. When you use the Facebook page, then you already have agreed on their terms that says every content you publish they can use it, without paying you. So, everything you share that is public its free, but if you share the content only with your friends is not free. Facebook have also a very strict policy about the content you share with other users, if it has an abusive or bullying message, nudity and other disturbing content, then Facebook will remove it (Laverty).

Facebook is a free social platform and do not have a premium membership option. Ads are everywhere on the Facebook page. Some of the apps are sponsored and some of them are based on users clicks and geographic data. For example, if you do a search on Google for products, travel etc. then you will probably see the adds for similar product or travels on your Facebook home page. This happens because the browser saves your searches and shares it with other apps and shows you similar adds. In 2018 Facebooks revenue was about 25million dollar, and that is four million dollar every month in 2018. In 2012 Facebook earned around 84% of their revenue from adverts and selling virtual games like FarmVille and Candy Crush. Facebooks highest earned was from the virtual game named Zynga, which was a poker game. They were also the maker of FarmVille. In 2017 the numbers dropped down, because they were mostly relied on advertisement to make money. Over 98% of Facebook revenue comes from advertising (Rose, 2018).

Facebooks business model’s strategy is based on generating data, which means more people shares and click on “Like” button, the more people socialize and connect. We share pages we like, where we are in the world and so on. All these shares we do, will companies pay a lot of money for these data. Facebook is the biggest and most dominant social platform, and they know every move we make on the page. For instance, like they know our likes, political views, which food & cinema we like and our location. All these details are helpful for companies, because they know who they should target with them adds. Since our data is very valuable to companies, this is the reason why Facebook adds cost more than TV and radio advertisement (Rose, 2018).

Facebook is known for killing their competitions, with their money power they have ability to acquire any platform. They tried to buy Snapchat, but they failed, then Facebook added Snapchats feature “Stories” to all their platforms. For example, they added “Stories” feature on Facebook and Instagram, so people don’t use another social media platform (Rose, 2018).

Facebook has $50 million annual revenue and it grows about 50% every year. Facebook’s motto is always been “build a community and bring the world closer together.” So how build a service that connects people without people paying? That’s why they use adds to support Facebooks business model. According to a survey done by record.net around 40% said that’s they will not pay more than five dollars, and that is way lower than YouTube and Netflix subscription fee. (Rose, 2018).

Facebook business model is about sharing user’s information. All data that we publish every day and shares on Facebook like political views, pictures etc. will be used as long Facebook can make money on the information you publish (Marketwatch, 2018).

Resources

1. MarketWatch. (2018). Opinion: Facebook has to change its business model because it’s using us as unpaid laborers. From:
2. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-has-to-change-its-business-model-because-its-using-us-as-unpaid-laborers-2018-04-12 (08.02.19)
3. Rose, Arrista. (2018). Facebook Business Model Analysis – How does Facebook Work & Make Money?
4. https://www.ncrypted.net/blog/facebook-business-model-how-does-facebook-work-make-money/
5. Laverty, Shea (2019). Do You Need Someone’s Permission to Take Their Pictures from Facebook? From: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/need-someones-permission-pictures-facebook-66026.html (08.02.19)

Facebook: Core Protection Competencies And Strategic Leadership Role

Introduction

Facebook is the largest social media company worldwide with 1.13billion daily active users in the mid of 2019. One of the core competencies of Facebook is the ability to move fast and add new features. In the recent years, Facebook discover many products and features to the platform such as adding timeline stories, adding photo filter edit, and deleting trending topics. Facebook also has a strong knowledge of society and networking. Facebook use this competitive advantage to create unique competence, as their networking site has better options and more capabilities compare to their competitors. In that time, almost every people left Myspace and use Facebook instead. However, there was a scandal started in 2015 when the Global Science Research (GSR) design Facebook app called “This is Your Digital Life”. The problem with the app is that the app has the ability to access other people who do not fill the survey which up to 87 million people. Then, GSR share it with Cambridge Analytica, and they sold those data to advertisers who work for presidential campaign. This problem will not be exist if Facebook did not launched Open Graph API which gave the third parties have an access to user data.

In the case of corporate accountability, Facebook is an advertising business model, with over 98% of their revenues are from advertisement (Yaakop, Anuar & Omar, 2013). As Facebook has all the user’s data, they use them to target ads to the right users. As Facebook use this kind of business model, they should more concern about the privacy of users, and do not just focus on generating revenue from the ads.

This strategy report examines the external analysis of the company relates to the scandal which include the strategy making process and core competencies of Facebook, mentions six-point plan including dynamic capability about the firm’s responses to the scandal, address SWOT analysis of the company due to the scandal, and finally discuss about strategic leadership role of top executive in Facebook and give recommendation.

External Analysis

Based on the PESTLE analysis, there are six factors that affect the external of the company: political, economic, social, technology, legal and environment. The most relevant factors for Facebook that relates to the scandal are social and legal.

Social Factor

One of the factor that affect the usage of Facebook is the educational level of the country. Other than that, people’s mindset against the acknowledgement of social network may also affects the business. For instance, when people no longer have trust or secure in giving their private information on public platform like social media, it will affect the existence of Facebook as people will stay away from Facebook (Debatin, Lovejoy, Horn & Hughes. 2009). Nowadays, based on the exhibit 6 in the case, people are more suspicious and careful about attaching his/her accounts to Facebook as there is a huge drop after 2017. This means that the majority of people have loose trust on Facebook and no longer believe that Facebook is committed to user privacy protection. Yet, many people still log in to Facebook every time even though they complain about their privacy issue. However, based on the survey, nearly everyone have the same answer that the quality of Facebook has decreased since it was started (Liu, Gummadi, Krishnamurthy & Mislove. 2011). In the future, if Facebook does not make any real changes regarding trust issue, people may totally lose their trust and will move to another social media.

Legal Factor

When Facebook start to enter into worldwide market, they have comply with specific regulation of a certain country such as copyright laws and data protection laws. The issue with Facebook about the data breaches can affect Facebook’s reputation or it may also land them in the court as it breaches data protection laws. To handle this problem, Europe has constructed the European Area’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR is a new policy concerning data privacy user. It gives users greater control over their data and give pressure to company to give better protection on personal user’s data (Albrecht, 2016). Company who not complying the law could leaded to heavy penalties. The agency that has the power to regulate this thing called Digital Protection Agency that has an authority to give education to public, clear toxic data, and levy fines (Buttarelli, 2016). Therefore, Facebook has to make some changes as the government will give more attention and more adaptive with the regulation that relates to online platform.

Organizational Response

In March 2018, CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, admitted it that he fail to give protection to all Facebook’s users and owe an apology in regards with the data misuse (Lomas, 2018). He also declared that, if the company do not have the power to protect the information, then the company fail to deserve the society. Mark shows the commitment by releasing a six-point plan to restore people’s trust.

Facebook’s Six-Point Plan

Facebook start to concern about the user’s trust issue, thus, they announce some recommendation to prevent further losses which called six-point plan. They promise will give complete audit of any suspicious app, and ban them if they breach the law. Then, they also disclose all the misuse data to the people that affected, and simplified the privacy setting to make it more user friendly. One of the most important, the unused apps have no longer have an access on the user’s information. Facebook also give reward to people who find a bug in the program. However, all of these programs have done privately without asking any feedback or comment from the stakeholder and society. This means that all of those plans do not really reflect the real needs of the society. Besides that, by implementing those plans, it will positively affect the image of Facebook and restore society’s trust. Those plans also reduce the chance for Facebook to deal with data protection problem that relates in the legal factor under external analysis. Furthermore, six-point plan help the company to restore all of their resources such as user, advertiser, shareholder, and brand reputation, as resources are key to superior firm performance.

Resource Based View (RBV)

In RBV approach, the most valuable assets for company to achieve the best performance are resources. The resources must be heterogeneous which means every company have different resources, and because of that, a company cannot completely follow the other company’s done. The other characteristic is immobile which means, in the short term, resources are difficult to move from company to company.

The most valuable resources of Facebook are brand image and algorithm. For example, Google introduce Google+ which is a social networking platform that has few similarities with Facebook. But why Google+ is not as successful as Facebook (Curran, Morrison & Mc Cauley, 2012). Simply because Google is well known as a search engine company, and people use Google+ only for the easy access to Gmail, Drive, and Google’s other apps, and not use it for social networking. Google has already matured their brand names as a search engine rather than social media platform. On the other hand, as Facebook has already very strong brand image and there is no other company that can compete with Facebook, many people still use Facebook even after the scandal. Facebook also has competitive advantage on the amount of advertisers. After the scandal, only seven out of thousand customers had halted their spending, this shows that, most of the advertisers has many benefit spending their money into the Facebook ads regardless any scandal that reduce Facebook’s reputation. As Facebook has a unique algorithm which advertisers be able to target the right market segment.

SWOT Matrix

Strengths and Opportunities

Large consumer base become the strength of Facebook that delivers some beneficial externalities (Burke & Kraut, 2016). This huge number of users produce attractiveness on Facebook’s website and apps to new members, more drawing attention to advertisers, and increase the barrier to entry for new companies to compete against Facebook even after Facebook face a scandal. Moreover, the company generate high profit that can be beneficial for research and development investments. A survey showed that from a thousand advertisers, only seven of them had halted their spending. It is proven that Facebook have economic benefit, since this e-commerce marketing was more effective than traditional marketing. Therefore, as Facebook have these strengths, they have the opportunity to do product innovation that can be compliment for its website and apps. They also have the opportunity to invest that differ from social media business. For example, they have acquired Oculus VR which is a virtual reality company, this can create extra value on social networking services and give diversification benefit (Ripton & Prasuethsut, 2015).

Weaknesses and Threats

One of the weaknesses of the company is their products and services are imitable. The other giant tech companies like Google and Microsoft can simply develop new product that has same features like Facebook, and this makes the company vulnerable to competition. Also, the mechanism of their advertising can be a weaknesses because users may feel annoyed with many ads that pops up in their social media surface (Kapp, Peters, & Oliver, 2013). Facebook offer free of charge services to the user, therefore, the only way for Facebook to generate profits are by selling the user’s private information for advertisement. This business model leads to ethical issue. The company’s weaknesses linked to threats in the industry environment. The major threats of Facebook is losing public’s trust as public may uninstall the apps and move to another platform. Then, the other threat is imitation, and it has the potential to decrease the value of the company. In the future, if Facebook does not make some changes on their algorithm and breach the user’s trust again because of Open Graph API, people will move to other social media that has similar features but they never involve in any privacy scandal. Moreover, the legal issue will decrease the company’s performance on generating income because government will tighten any regulation that relates to social media and e-commerce.

Strategic Leadership Role

Facebook’s Top Management Team (TMT)

TMT consists of group of head executives who are in charge for the performance of the organization. Those include: all founder, managing director, all managers recognized by the CEO, etc. The main function of TMT is to interpret the policy devised by the board of directors. In constructing TMT, size should be considered. Bantel and Jackson (1989) suggested that the ideal size is somewhere below ten members. When the number of TMT is too large, there will be lacked of engagement in collaborative work between the members because the size is unmanageable. Collins and Clark (2003) also stated that the more people are recruited into the team, the less each individual member give contribution to the group. However, TMT of Facebook has 19 members in total. The reason why they have so many member in the group because Facebook has acquired 77 company across the world such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR, etc. Then, Mark said that everyone in the team have effectively contributed in the success of the company (Thomas, 2019). In this case, we can say that the theory is just a guideline, and some firm may need to have more members depends on their needs as long as all the members can work effectively.

Facebook’s CEO Model

CEO Model is applicable for Facebook because Facebook has such a young talented CEO who is difficult to intervene by others. The good or bad of the business really depends on the CEO (Colbert, Kristof-Brown, Bradley & Barrick, 2008). This model believe that everyone in the company have trust on the leadership of the CEO. In the case of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is the founder, CEO, and chair of Facebook and he cannot be influenced by others because he has more than 50% voting rights (53, 3%) in the company (Stewart, 2018). Thus, employees will trust on any decision that Mark’s made as he knew the company so well. On the other hand, this means that, no one in the board have the power to change Mark’s decision. Then, Mark can simply ignore the other’s perception and those who closest to him will always win the game (Gordon, 1988). Stewart (2018) mentioned that Mark Zuckerberg and the group of insiders who work inside the company control almost 70% of Facebook’s voting shares in total. Many shareholders announced a request to acquire an independent board chair, but still, the fate of Facebook is not up to anyone but Mark Zuckerberg. Because of this, Mark may bear bounded rationality which alter the decision making process.

Bounded Rationality

The result of research paper of Simon (1982) shows that every human being have bounded rationality as rationality is limited because our brain has maximum capacity on thinking and limited amount of available information that we obtain. A leader who have bounded rationality will have limited field of vision on making company’s decision. For example, before the scandal arise, Mark Zuckerberg only care about how to maximize the valuation growth and how to create profit from the advertisement program. He launched a developer tool called Open Graph API that sell the user’s private data including user’s private messages to external third parties. Of course, this will rapidly increase the revenue of Facebook and make the shareholder happy as the share price of the company also increased. However, he lose focus on protecting the privacy of user’s information. This unethical behavior leads to serious crime, in July 2018, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office give fine to Facebook worth £500,000 over the data scandal (ABC News, 2019). This also will result in reduce the market share price of Facebook by 18%.

Internal Responses to External Environment

It is true that Mark Zuckerberg have a blunder that cause a serious problem, but as a leader, he take the burden, accept the situation, and try to find the best solution to fix the condition. First of all, in the first five days post scandal arise in the public, He did not give any response and remain silent. While, after the company done the investigation, he apologize to the public by New York Times as the intermediary and apology tours. Mark and his team agreed to the company being supervised to more regulations and change the company’s strategy into more private-focused social network (Ghaffary, 2019). This will reflect a positive response in the society and bring back the confidence level of the society as they believe Facebook will not repeat mistake in the past. However, there is an internal conflict days after Facebook announced this strategy changes, two of Facebook’s top executives (Chief product officer, Chris Cox, and VP of WhatsApp, Chris Daniels) left the company without any reasons (Ghaffary, 2019). This shows that not everyone in the TMT members agree with any decision of the company.

Recommendation

Strategy Making Process in the Board of Director

Facebook should modify the company’s strategy making process in their board of director. One of the main role of board is to oversees any activities inside the company and to ensure that the activity in line with the will of the shareholders. On the other hand, CEO is the person who responsible for running those process. If those two role are accepted by one person, it will create abuse of the position. Mark Zuckerberg is basically untouchable and no one in the board have the power to give critics to him. Therefore, the correct person that can led the board is independent member who does not have any involvement in the business’s activity. He/she is more likely to control the company’s operation and give correction to the CEO. To achieve this strategy, the suitable approach is to change the majority shareholder of the company by reducing the voting rights of Mark Zuckerberg. It is recommended that Mark keeps his voting right below fifty percent as he served as founder and CEO of Facebook, which close the door for abuse of power.

Business Model

The user’s privacy should be more emphasized, in order to the company will not repeat the past mistake in the future. This can be done by changing the company’s business model into freemium which give some choice to the user, whereby basic services are kept free of charge, while the other features should be paid for (Wilson, 2006). This business model will create diversification benefit for Facebook in terms of resources of income. Initially, Facebook did not receive any income from user’s registration, and the majority sources of income are from advertisement. By implementing this model, Facebook generate another sources of income from the user’s subscription if user want to have an access to the advance future. Facebook should not display any ads in user’s social media surface who pay extra for the subscription. Besides diversification benefit, by implementing this model, Facebook have the control on third parties accessing the user’s data and reduce the privacy issue in the future.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Facebook face two external factors regarding privacy scandal, social and legal factor. Facebook have significant loss regarding the issue: loosing trust in the society, paying the penalty worth £500,000, and significant share price dropped by 18%. To stop further loss, Mark Zuckerberg ask for an apology and announce Six-Point Plan to restore the image of the company as he know that the company’s brand image is the most valuable resource for the company. While, nowadays, Facebook has very strong user’s database and they still hold the best social media company that have 1.13billion daily active users. If they cannot maintain the position, many giant tech company together will come and compete against Facebook in the social media industry, as they will try to duplicate the features of Facebook and claim to public that their company are more safety than Facebook. So it is recommended for Facebook to immediately change the company’s governance structure which can minimize the abuse of position of the CEO. Then, in order to minimize the privacy issue in the future, it is better to change the company’s business model into freemium which also have diversification benefit in the sources of income.

Business Trends Of Facebook

Section 1-Introduction

Facebook is a social media platform which allows users to connect with friends colleagues or people they don’t know online. Currently Facebook has 1 billion users worldwide. Facebook was set up in 2004 when a group of friends set up a social platform in order to connect students in the Harvard University. (Sabrina Barr 2018)Facebooks main founder was Mark Zuckerberg while attending Harvard along with classmates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Mark Zuckerberg had previously developed a number of social networking websites such as Coursematch and Facewash. In 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launched “The Facebook” as it was originally known; the idea for the website originally came from sheets of paper profiling students and staff.(Sarah Philips 2007) Facebook has become a huge success mainly due to its ability to appeal to both businesses and people and its ability to interact with other site across the web.(Mary Bellis 2020) In 2019 Facebooks number of employees was 44,942 which was a 26.29% increase from 2018. Some of Facebooks main competitors include Snapchat and Instagram even though Instagram is currently owned by Facebook. In terms of advertising Facebooks, biggest competitor is Google. (Prinona Das 2019). Google currently has more than 73,000 full time employees and commands a search share of 78.65% of traffic in the US alone as of October 2017(Hitesh Bhasin 2018)

The culture at Facebook is largely influenced by the values that have been spread throughout the company since its creation. (Jessica Lombardo 2018) Examples include;

1. Be Bold- The culture in Facebook encourages taking risks even if it involves employees making mistakes. Facebook also aims to maximise the company’s flexibility in addressing business issues.
2. Focus on impact- Employees are encouraged to focus on the biggest and most important problems. This is one of the downfalls in Facebook where employees waste a lot of valuable time on and focus on the smaller less important problems
3. Move fast- Facebook prefers its employees to carry out tasks quickly and efficiently which in turn helps employees to learn faster. Facebook is based on a culture of builders. Facebook is of the opinion that that it HR react quickly to the needs of the multinational market.
4. Be open- Facebook believes that an open world is a better one. Intelligent informed people make better decisions and Facebook tries to provide as much information as possible in order to complement these informed decisions
5. Build Social Value- Facebooks main goal was to ensure the world was more open and connected. Facebook encourages it employee to work every day on bringing real value to the world.

Section 2-Business Trends

1. More shifts to private channels- At the annual F8 developed conference last year, Mark Zuckerberg shared “A Privacy Focused Vision for Social Networking” (Sehl, 2020). Nearly two thirds of people feel that using messaging apps is a safer and more secure way of sharing valuable information. A recent poll shows that 55% of markets agree that the rise of private channels has made them rethink their content strategy (Christina Newberry, 2019). Mark Zuckerberg has recently announced that Facebook plans to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger into one messaging system. Zuckerberg is of the opinion that that users are increasingly using group or private messaging as opposed to posting to the public news feed which everyone and anyone can see. (Axon, 2019). The Facebook scandal with Cambridge Analytica was another one of the huge influencing factors in Facebooks idea to shift to private channels. In April 2018, Facebook announced that the scandal had affected over 87 million users. (Stewart, 2018) Companies and brand-side teams need to be aware of Facebooks changes and have strategies in place, which understands how interact with audiences in more private social environment. (Garner, 2019). With Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of Facebook becoming more private orientated, there are many implications. Facebook puts ads into user’s feeds and messaging apps do not have these feeds. Those ads are very valuable to advertisers because Facebook can target people based on the information they get from their profiles. If Facebook goes private and everyone is using messaging apps with high levels of encryption, it will become very difficult for Facebook to target people with ads moving forward. (Axon, 2019) (Wagner, 2019)

2. Social Commerce- Social Commerce is a combination of social media and e-commerce. A recent survey in December 2019 that 11% of shoppers used Facebook as a platform to purchasing channels on black Friday and 14% on cyber Monday. This shows the influence Facebook has today in luring customers by attractive offers and brands who simply want to increase their revenue and brand. (Team, 2020) Today Businesses can create an entire store within Facebook. The website ConversionXL carried out a case study on a brand, which was experimented with a Facebook shop. Results from the case study showed;

• Within 90 days approximately 60,000 users visited the store
• These visitors purchased at a 0.5% conversion rate which lead to more than $15,000 in revenue (Pusztai, 2019)

Although Facebook’s user experience is not dedicated to social shopping, the social platform is a key influencer for retail brands, which makes it a key driver to ecommerce sites. According to Adobe, Facebook drove 80.4% of all US social referral to retail sites in Quarter 1 of 2019. (Lipsman, 2019). There are clear signs that Social Commerce will continue to grow. North American e-commerce agency Absolunet has identified the following keys stats:

• 87% of e-commerce shoppers believe social media helps them make their decision
• 1 in 4 business owners are selling through Facebook
• 40% of merchants use social media to generate sales
• 30% of consumers say they would make purchases directly through social media platforms (Llewellyn, 2019).

There are positive effects of Social Commerce on Facebook such as Facebook Shopping reaching new heights. Companies are now taking Facebook shopping to a new level with F-Commerce. Stores that are heading towards this social business Facebook nirvana are stores such as Baby and me gifts which has its Facebook page powered by Big Commerce. The Integration with Facebook provides approximately 50% of all their online sales and is proving to be as effective as e-mail marketing. (Bullas, 2020)

3. Mounting Political Pressure- Already this year, Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth found himself in the news after an internal memo was leaked to the New York Times. Facebook has added more control and transparency for political pages and ads. (Sehl, 2020) Facebook which is one of the most powerful social media platforms will not be changing its controversial policies about political ads: It will continue to run them, it will not prevent politicians from lying in ads they buy on Facebook, and it will not restrict campaigns ability to target groups of voters with their ads. (Kafka, 2020) Mark Zuckerberg speaking on Facebook’s earnings call doubled down on his policy, reiterating his argument that private companies should not have the power to censor politicians. Politicians spend millions buying “reach” but they are not a significant contribution to Facebook’s earnings (Nuttall, 2019). Future effects for Zuckerberg not banning political ads could be damaging and costly. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), ran a fake ad claiming Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has endorsed Trump’s re-election. Warren also, without evidence suggested that social media had adopted the policy as part of a backroom deal with Trump (Stewart, 2018)

4. Upgrades to Messenger, with pivots to desktop- Mobile reigns supreme. In fact, 94% of all ad revenue comes from mobile. (Sehl, 2020) Facebook plans to pivot into private messaging now have a desktop software component. The company said that it would bring messenger, its popular messaging client, to Mac and Windows later this year. (Newton, 2019) The revisions add to the new features to promote group-based communications instead of news feed, where people publicly post a cascade of messages and status updates. Company also plans to continue emphasizing its stories product that allows people to post updates, which disappear after 24 hours. (Isaac, 2019) Unfortunately, Facebooks pivot to privacy is missing something crucial. Zuckerberg listed the six privacy principles, but there was one glaring omission: He said nothing about how Facebook plans to approach sharing and ad targeting in this privacy-focused future. (Thompson, 2019)

5. Video Marketing- In the modern era more than half of consumers swear by video marketing as a major part of their online purchasing. Meanwhile 72% of businesses have said that video marketing has boosted their conversion rates in some way (Murphy, 2020). Video marketing has numerous advantages such as;

1. You’re Customers are watching the videos- The statistics prove that your audience is watching the video which is the only benefit you need to hear:
   1. 92% of B2B prospects consume online video
   2. About one third of shoppers will purchase a product after viewing a video add
2. Video ads do well among mobile users- The number of people watching videos on mobile devises continues to rise. One interesting statistic for companies distributing video is that 88% of short pieces, around 30 seconds are watched through to the end of the mobile. The same isn’t true for viewing an add on a computer
3. People share videos- Those who view a video add and find it interesting or valuable will share it with their followers on social media. (Daly, 2020)

In terms of the future of video marketing on Facebook in response to live video’s overwhelming popularity, Facebook has adjusted its algorithm to emphasize videos that generate conversation between users, which tends to be from Facebook live. As a result 81% of businesses prefer Facebook for their video marketing. By 2020, Facebook’s video revenue is expected to surpass 10 billion dollars.

PESTEL Analysis of Facebook

Introduction

As part of Assignment for Strategic Management I will be doing a PESTEL analysis of a company of my choice. For this analysis I have chosen to talk about Facebook. The four factors that I will be discussing will be Political, Economic, Social, and Technological. I will be discussing how these 4 factors will have an impact on a company like Facebook.

Political Factors

Political Stability:

When we think about political factors in relation to Facebook, one of the first things that comes to mind is political stability. The use of political discussion that users can do when using Facebook is a big thing that can impact Facebook. Back in the year 2008 during the US presidential elections Facebook gave users the allowed users to be able to communicate with others about their political beliefs with one another. Since Facebook is open to everyone it is very easy for anyone to just share their political opinions. First off, we think is this a good thing? Do these political debates and discussions on Facebook affect the political involvement of the younger generation or is it an example of “Slacktivism” (This is where there is involvement in political activities through the use of social media or other online resources. These resources involve very little effort from the user). A survey was taken by undergraduate students at public college in Midwestern in the USA. The survey was undertaken a month before the 2008 Elections. The results show that lots of students interact with Political activities through Facebook and other websites. The government of a country may view these acts as a threat to their economy but they will have to agree to terms and conditions with Facebook so they can both work together. Political stability is very important to help influence Facebook within a country.

Political Advertising:

Another way of how political factors can relate to Facebook is the use of Political Advertising. As we all know Facebook is used a lot for political discussions but as we see from sources based on political microtargeting and how it integrates with Facebook we have seen that Parties and Politicians have used Facebook as an opportunity to advertise their campaigns for promotional uses. Facebooks has shifted political advertising during the election periods so they may seem higher in user feeds. On these social media sites users can targeted based on their profile information such as Personal interests and hobbies. By using Sites like Facebook, the political leaders have a greater chance of reaching out to potential voters who are at a difficult reach at a relatively low-cost procedure. Studies that were on this found showed that personal advertising done online have an impact on viewers. They grabbed viewers’ attention because the adverts are less compiled with information and they send a clear message out to help the viewers out with making their final decisions.

“Running a Facebook ad as a promotion of your page is a cheap method to get your page in front of a targeted group of Facebook users”. (Carter, B. and Levy, J. (n.d.). Facebook)

Economic Factors

Economic growth:

The Facebook service is big globally. Everyone uses to it to this day for almost everything. It can be very important in the factor of economic growth. It is specifically important to the development of a country in a socio-economic situation. Within the socio-economic development of a country, around the world you have stakeholders using social media and increasingly changing and expanding their new products, markets to deliver new income streams. As shown from this abstract in recent case studies have looked at the look of environments that supports the use of sites like Facebooks in the developed world. From this study case Facebook and the socio-economic benefits would be impacted if it was operating from within an Enabling environment (rich and varied space environment). From a questionnaire taken out of 367 Facebook users we see that performance and effort expectancy and social influences are factors that can affect Facebook in a developing country. The finding also shows that other factors such as religion, ethnicity, language, gender and education moderate Facebooks adoption perception use- behaviour.

Facebook over the years has changed completely. It has gone from being just small communication tool for users. It has become a tool that has helped with the development of social capital and wealth within an economy (Ellison et al 2007, Baily 2010, Nielsen 2011, shin 2013). Even though Facebook is being used in developing and developed countries global, the advantages of Facebook in these countries to promote social economic well-being are less apparent.

Facebook Economy:

From within the US news Digital weekly article in 2012, it discusses that Facebook is in no Economic recession. The proposed 5 billion-dollar initial public offering from Facebook is aiming introduce economic energy which is then hoping to help spark the stock market and then result with creating over 1000 new millionaires. In terms of the employment levels within Facebook there is an estimated 8.5 % unemployment rate. The company took on up to 3200 new hires and still has more plans to hire even more. Every year Facebooks has risen by 50 %. With these successful rates with employment in Facebook it will continuously keep creating more jobs by buying more equipment. They have also created new feature within their social media world. The feature supports gamming and other apps that’s didn’t exist before. In 2011 there was a study case taken in university of Marylands smith school of business it was calculated that Facebook had created up to 183000 new jobs year by year within America and also 12 billion dollars of economic activity. This was a result of the new features such gaming and new applications that were added to Facebook.

All the new job created were mostly highly skilled and very high salaried. This helps keeps the economy and healthy. Forms of research were taken by the University of Maryland, found that the average salary for the these was up to 58000 Dollars which was calculated at 35% higher than other full time American jobs.

Social Factors

Education:

With Social Factors we look at things such as education. How does Facebook get involved with Education? Gathered from information from an Academic journal a group from the Department of Computer systems and technologies Ruse University took an assessment to use Facebook and other social media websites as a learning environment. During a period of over 5 years they gathered results from surveys of student from different courses. The results they got from the students were positive as they saw that students felt that Facebook helps increase learning abilities by having Communication with one another from outside of class periods. This increases the student’s motivation levels and their results as shown.

Demographics:

With this experiment carried out from this academic journal we have looked at the impact of demographics and relationship status. This is based on a Facebook user posting their personal profile pictures. From this case they examined over 1000 Facebook profiles from Israel. The common age range was users from age 18 to 61. It was finalised that over nearly half of the users (40%) who posted their pictures were wearing skimpy outfits (Short, Revealing outfits). From statistics found it shows that users who posted these kinds of pictures were users who had low levels or no education at all, as well as them being at younger age. They also discovered other things about these users such as them not being involved in long term committed relationships. Another factor involved was gender. It was shown that women with high school education levels were the most common with posting pictures that are revealing then men with the same level of education.

Consumer Leisure Time:

We all know that Facebook is one of biggest social media websites in the world and has over millions of users. It has quite a huge amount of people from a younger generation especially students. It is a known fact that with Facebook, users usually reveal themselves in a favourable way with their profile pictures. Here we discuss the impact of Facebook on peoples lives. With users that are more involved with Facebook on a constant basis there are 2 ways in which they may view other people. Users usually judge others on examples easily recalled. Secondly users tend to respond or show interest in the posts on Facebook that are more positive. Over the years questionnaires have been filled out based on time usage of Facebook. Questions included how many years users have Facebook? and how often do they use it? How many friends do people have on their friends list? Were undertaken by over 425 students from various colleges. The results gathered from these surveys showed that people who use Facebook more often are happier in life.

Technological Factors

Rate of Technology Change:

In terms of technological factors with Facebook there is a connection as Facebook is a Social media website. Technology in this day and age is constantly evolving. One of the big Technological factors about Facebook is the mobile application use. Over the years mobile Technology has made everything convenient for everyone. From sources gathered it is shown that over half of a billion customers globally use the Facebook mobile app. This is good for Facebook as it will increase their revenue as they gain more users. Back in 2014 it was calculated that Facebook has over 1.19 billion users using their mobile app monthly. An Estimated over 26% as the years went on.

Another fact that ties into the rate of Technology change with Facebook involves the Facial Recognition. As stated by the social media giant Facebook have been looking into the works of matching users faces through facial recognition in a very accurate way that is claimed to be “human like accuracy”. Social media giant has also stated that facial recognition software which renders 3D face modelling now has 97.25 % success rate with the recognition process. The software being used create this is called Deep Face. It uses up to “more than 120 million parameters” to recreate users face. It then scans through millions of user’s profiles and photos to match each user.

Forbes article report saying that the DeepFaces methods and technology could “improve Facebooks ability to suggest users for tagging in an uploaded photo and for other potential purposes”.

Another way in which the rate of technology with Facebook is changing is the new Feature they are building that can help describe pictures to blind people. Taken from Times magazine Facebook announced back in 2015 that they will be introducing new Artificial intelligence software that will aim to assistant blind people with describing images. Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook announced that the new technology will be a way of Facebook growing by extending the social media aspect to everyone including people who are blind.

Mark Zuckerberg also stated that “We see AI as helping computers better understand the world so they can be more helpful to people”.

References:

Academic Journals:

1. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Political Stability/Political Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=59355269&site=ehost-live [Accessed 17 Oct. 2019].
2. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Education Levels/Social Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=136670091&site=ehost-live [Accessed 18 Oct. 2019].
3. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Demographics/Social Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=124030659&site=ehost-live [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019].
4. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Economic Growth/ Economic Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=95510878&site=ehost-live [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019].
5. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Political Advertising/Political Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=116285221&site=ehost-live [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

Magazines:

1. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Rate of Technology Change/Technological Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=100705353&site=ehost-live [Accessed 18 Oct. 2019].
2. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Rate of Technology Change/Technological Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=95439633&site=ehost-live [Accessed 19 Oct. 2019].
3. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Rate of Technology Change/Technological Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=110718456&site=ehost-live [Accessed 21 Oct. 2019].
4. Search.ebscohost.com. (2019). EBSCOhost Login. (Facebook Economy/Economic Factor) [online] Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=71246835&site=ehost-live [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

Books

1. Carter, B. and Levy, J. (n.d.). Facebook.

The Power of Facebook in Everyday Communication

One of the most famous social media outlets used today, that almost everybody has an account worldwide for, is “Facebook.” What is Facebook? Facebook is a popular social networking website that is free and allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and videos, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. (Rouse-Margaret, 2014)

Facebook is available in 37 different languages, includes many public features. (Rouse-Margaret, 2014). Users can do even more with Facebook; such as, order food, live stream videos, transfer money and even link other applications and accounts. Facebook is also aware of your privacy and allows people to share content with whom they choose, any other application or website link, made publicly accessible, or it can be shared only among a select group of friends and family. Facebook users connect and communicate with others by adding friends, following their updates, commenting, and responding to posts. Users can take many advantages from Facebook; however, Facebook can also be used to project negative emotions, feeling, or intent to do harm.

Each person prefers to use Facebook in many different ways. Personally, I take good advantage of “Facebook” primarily using it for free Wi-Fi video calling, watching current news updates, reading interesting linked stories local to my country, and connect with friends. Most of my friends on Facebook are the people that I know or met in person first. Facebook allows me to stay in touch and share my life events with them even if they cannot be with me. I like Facebook more than any other social media since it provides me with an oral, visual and written communication platform that I can access all at the same time and allow my communication purpose successful. I can present many kinds of information by several means. For example, I can be commenting on postings on my own profile while simultaneously uploading GIF files to my friends account and video calling my family back in Thailand. I use public links to acquire knowledge, whether I’m watching news or reading articles relevant to my education or career. I love the ability as well to see if my friends or family are sad by the pictures or comments they post. I can then know and find out what is wrong and utilize what Facebook already has to offer with funny emojis, GIFs, or Video Streaming with funny cover pictures. I always try to keep my friends and family happy by letting them see only happy photos of me instead of posing my bad situation, so they will not have to worry and wonder how am I doing. Facebook also allows me to upload photos and videos of my dog since she is my beloved one, so smart, cuddly and cute! It makes me even happier to see that others agree “Frenchie is the best.”

I believe Facebook presents what I want it to, so I prefer to think before I post anything. I not only use my account to show my emotions and supporting emotions to my family and friends, but also pride in my heritage and national origin. I choose to show my history from as far back as I possibly can to even now. I share publicly photos of my native hometown to show how lovely it is, the residence and culture are. We take pride in our cooking and you can see that everywhere I go that’s nice to eat, or when I cook at home, I love showing how tasty it looks since you can’t taste its awesomeness with me. I care politically about what happens in my country, but I do not post or show any comment since it is very disrespectful to Facebook friends who might think differently. In contrast when I compare my Facebook profile to my husband’s profile, I show more empathy and desire to communicate with others on Facebook. My husband has almost nothing and chooses not to link, share or have many friends outside of those he works with. Unlike myself when I cook a lovely meal, I wish to show my friends and family and feel that gratification, my husband says he could care less and has no desire or drive for the gratification or recognition of others. The only reason he keeps his account is for WI-FI calling myself when he travels and to link other applications easier. I would assume that he prefers to have more interaction and communication with people in person over social media.

As mentioned before how Facebook can be positive to me since I can take a good advantage from it, thinking about how people can use Facebook in a negative way makes me think about the military guy who became an active shooter in Thailand. The police investigated this case and found some information on his Facebook profile linked to this terrified situation.

“Thailand police revealed Sunday they tried several times to persuade a soldier who had killed 29 people to turn himself in, and even brought the gunman’s mother in to talk to him. The shooting at a military base in Thailand’s northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima province, known as Korat, and a crowded shopping mall also left 58 others injured — 30 of whom remain hospitalized — before the gunman was killed by police at around 9 a.m. local time on Sunday (9 p.m. ET Saturday), according to officials” CNN, (Westcott-Ben)

Through the investigation, police discovered his Facebook profile had many posted pictures of weapons; along with, angry status updates only one day prior. It was determined that the main conflict he had ongoing was with land dealings between him and his boss, an armor general, and never receiving fair justice. When looking into his daily life, he was just a normal nice guy who was beloved by all his friends. Facebook had been an area to comfort his sadness. When he was sad, depressed or happy he couldn’t show and share his emotions and problems with his military friends, so Facebook was the best place to release what was on his mind. Nobody believed he could become the person who would senselessly kill many people the following day. That day, he used his Facebook live to show what he was doing. Surprisingly, he made his live video public so everyone could see him shooting people in the shopping mall. Many people came to comment on his Facebook to make him to stop, but was not succeed. He seemed to feel that he owns the power that can make people scared, cry and control whether they live or die. People trapped in shopping mall had their lives held in his hands.

In conclusion we can see how my Facebook empowers myself to communicate emotion and joy, and to further amplify my own through positive gratification. On the other hand, we can see the power and terror one person can project, and how they can thrive and feed on not necessarily receiving feedback, but knowing what they are doing is being shown to the world.

Positive Effects of Facebook on Academics

‘If you are on social media and you are not learning, not being inspired, not networking, then, you are using it wrong.’ This is a quote by an expert in social media etiquette, Germany Kent. However, while some people would agree with this statement, others are likely to refuse. It is undeniable that social media sites such as Facebook have become integral parts of the current society and have affected all sectors, including education. In an era when social media has become widely used, it is bound that these platforms have a direct impact on academics. One of the most used social media sites in the world is Facebook, which allows people to interact online by posting messages and pictures. Many young people have become hooked on this social media site, which has been associated with numerous impacts, both positive and negative. Irrespective of some previous studies being indecisive about the actual relationship between Facebook and academic performance, they have presented abundant information regarding the effect that the platform has on the learners’ academic achievements. However, some researchers have indicated that Facebook cannot bring any positive impacts on academics sine it has been associated with psychological problems that affect the student’s concentration and makes the students fail (O’Reilly 603). As such, they perceive that social media sites like Facebook should be limited in use in school grounds to ensure that students remain focused on their studies. While some researchers in the education sector have built this perception, others feel that Facebook has brought a lot of positive impacts on students’ academics. The perceived benefits that Facebook has on academics are that it allows students to feel part of the school community, provide other channels of information other than teachers, and enhance virtual educational discussions that are convenient to learners.

A key positive effect that Facebook has brought on students’ academics is that it has enabled their virtual educational discussions that are convenient. Many schools and institutions of higher learning often enforce students to work in groups to ensure that they share knowledge and help each other. As such, Facebook allows students to create groups where they can engage without the need for meeting physically. This has promoted networking among learners who have seen these virtual groups as more convenient and easier channels where they can engage with their fellow classmates. At the same time, even when the group is not active, members can post a question and others can comment with their responses from which they can engage in conversations with the respondents to establish the most suitable solutions to their academic problem. Besides, these groups have been influential in enhancing language learning. as posited by Ping and Miniam (32), “Learners can also increase their fluency through writing their comment, because group discussion allows learners the option to discuss one topic step-by-step, so that their language and knowledge of the topic improves accordingly.” As such, the effectiveness of Facebook in promoting knowledge sharing among students cannot be underestimated. At the same time, public and private libraries ensure that members can share information about reading materials, which is helpful to others. As such, Facebook has been perceived to be a global library that has helped people to get recommendations that have helped them in their education. This issue has been noted by Das and Mahapatra (96) who narrate that “…public libraries are using its wall and upload photos as the preferred way to share information than academic libraries. however, it also found that both types of libraries use Facebook for passing information to users, rather than use as a discussion forum.’ Such issues have all contributed towards enhancing the academic performances of students since they have been saved from visiting the libraries physically.

Moreover, Facebook creates a positive impact on academics by ensuring that students can learn from an array of sources other than depending only on their teachers. On the one hand, students have stopped waiting for instructions only from their teachers since Facebook offers a platform where these learners can engage with other professionals in different areas. For instance, many scientists on Facebook can greatly offer more expertized help to students, which goes a long way in enhancing their academic performance. Akram and Kumar (350) note that “The long range interpersonal communication advances are worked in such a way, to the point that understudies will have the capacity to pick the gathering, movement or the individual they would need to take after for every day refreshes.’ This means that students have been allowed to ensure that they converse with any professional that they identify as being helpful to them in their studies. Such interactions even become essential since these professionals become mentors to the students, which is a source of motivation to the learners. On the other hand, it has been reported that rather than blocking students from using Facebook in school, learning institutions should provide proper arrangements that facilitate the training of learners. This has been suggested by Negussie and Girum (35) who claim that ‘Therefore, it is highly recommendable that higher education institutes like Universities, Colleges should foster students to use Facebook for educational purpose by providing proper arrangements and training rather blocking the sites.’ Such opportunities will be important in making sure that students learn how to use Facebook for the right reasons, such as conducting research. In the current society, it has become easy to use social media when researching about issues ranging from history to science since many people who are Facebook have relevant knowledge that can greatly be beneficiary to the students.

Another positive impact of Facebook on academics is that it has allowed individuals to feel like part of the school community. Student engagement with their instructors and faculty members is an effective way of ensuring that they are part of the school community. Teachers who go the extra mile of ensuring that they engage with their students beyond the classroom make a significant impact on these students’ academics. As noted by Clements (132), “Facebook can act as a rapid avenue of communication between educators and students, with students often receiving instructor and classmate messages through Facebook far quicker than through other online communication platforms.” This direct messaging between students and teachers has been a significant method that has ensured that education does not stop once the teacher leaves the classroom. At the same time, the engagement ensures that there is the cultivation of an environment that makes the students feel like part of the school community, which has a direct impact on their studies. Furthermore, research by Forkosh-Baruch et al. (274), “Teachers, as well as educational systems at large, can benefit from these changes by facilitating contemporary educational paradigms, allowing teachers to “[engage] in an authentic relationship with students where teachers know and respond with intelligence and compassion to students and their learning.’ This means that irrespective of the distance between the teacher and student, they continue to engage in education issues through social media sites such as Facebook. As such, this aspect has challenged the traditional perspective whereby teachers and students could only engage while in the classroom which created an accumulation of students’ communication with the teachers hence, derailing the delivery of timely responses from their teachers. Additionally, Al-Dheleai and Zaidatun (171) argue that “Facebook can facilitate and enable the instructors to achieve their online roles of instructional design and organization, facilitating students’ discourse and providing direct instructions.’ It becomes easy for teachers to offer instructions about assignments and other related works that they give students, which allows the learners to be enlightened. This positive relationship between the teachers and students is what helps the learners to acknowledge the fact that they are appreciated and that instructors are concerned about them beyond the classroom. As such, this creates a favorable environment such that students feel like part of the school community. The feeling of being an appreciated member of the school community ensures that the student even remains committed to his/her school work, which enhances his overall performance.

Despite the arguments presented on the positive impacts that Facebook has on students’ academics, the opposing side deems that it has only brought negative effects. For instance, Facebook has been blamed for causing psychological problems among students, which adversely affects their academic performance. Psychological problems often emerge as a result of a student becoming addicted to Facebook and spend most of their times on this platform. Addiction to Facebook has been associated with a poor concentration in the classroom, which leads to trailing academic performance. As reported by Arad et al. (3), “In the case of Facebook, the design of the news feed creates an overwhelming emphasis on the positive experiences of others which may give rise to envy, rumination and jealousy as well as depression, anxiety, and stress.’ When students are exposed to such mental problems, it becomes impossible for them to perform excellently in their academics. Instead, they spend a lot of time trying to overcome the mental problems that they fail in their academics. Furthermore, this argument is supported by another recent research by Guo (12) who necessitates that ‘Facebook use would give rise to loneliness and decrease the satisfaction with life and feeling of happiness.” When students experience such issues, they are affected psychologically, which affects their performance in the classroom. In refutation to these claims, it can be identified that Facebook has brought positive impacts on students’ performance since they can access current and emerging trends. The latter has been emphasized by Kaya and Huseyin (378), “As mobile device (smartphone, tablets, wearable etc.) ownership increases, it is becoming easier for people to share information via social net-works, and this may affect their popularity online. Moreover, students are following news and get opinions about current trends.’ Therefore, some of the current trends, especially about the economy, have been essential in ensuring that students do not lag in these issues. At the same time, students can easily access the current education plans that are being introduced, which ensures that they are at par with what is going on in society.

In conclusion, the discussion has indicated that Facebook has a positive impact on academic performance. The anticipated benefits that Facebook has on academics include the fact that it allows students to feel part of the school community, enhances virtual educational discussions that are convenient to learners, and provide other channels of information other than teachers. The engagement between teachers and students on Facebook serves to showcase that these learners are valued in the school community. At the same time, students have organized online groups on Facebook where they can engage in conversations about their studies, which is a significant step towards ensuring that education is enhanced. Similarly, Facebook has allowed students to engage with professionals in various fields other than relying on their teachers for all information. However, opponents of Facebook use in enhancing education have argued that this social media platform brings psychological problems which hamper their activeness in the classroom and lead to their failure in education. Therefore, it is essential that teachers and students capitalize on the positive aspects of Facebook while remaining careful about the negative impacts that it can bring on education.

Works Cited

1. Akram, Waseem, and Kumar Reem. ‘A Study on Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Society.’ International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering. 2017, 347 354.
2. Al-Dheleai, Yahya M., and Zaidatun Tasir. ‘Using Facebook for the Purpose of Students’ Interaction and Its Correlation with Students’ Academic Performance.’ Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology-TOJET 16.4 (2017): 170-178.
3. Arad, Ayala et al. ‘The Impact of Facebook on Social Comparison and Happiness: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.’ Available at SSRN 2916158 (2017).
4. Clements, Jeff C. “Using Facebook to Enhance Independent Student Engagement: A Case Study of First-Year Undergraduates.” Higher Education Studies, vol. 5, no. 4, Jan. 2015, pp. 131–146. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1075114&site=eds-live&scope=site.
5. Das, Kshirod, and R. K. Mahapatra. “Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing via Facebook Groups: Analysis of Postings of Library and Information Science Community.” DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, vol. 38, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 95–101. EBSCOhost, doi:10.14429/djlit.38.2.10949.
6. Forkosh-Baruch, Alona, et al. “Teacher-Student Relationship and SNS-Mediated Communication: Perceptions of Both Role-Players.” Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Skills and Lifelong Learning, vol. 11, Jan. 2015, pp. 273–289. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1104070&site=eds-live&scope=site.
7. Guo, Huishan. “Linking Loneliness and Use of Social Media.’ The University of Helsinki. Pp. 1 75
8. Kaya, Tugberk1, tugberk.kaya@neu.edu. t., and Huseyin2 Bicen. “The Effects of Social Media on Students’ Behaviors; Facebook as a Case Study.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 59, June 2016, pp. 374–379. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.02.036.
9. O’Reilly, Michelle, et al. “Is Social Media Bad for Mental Health and Wellbeing? Exploring the Perspectives of Adolescents.” Clinical Child Psychology And Psychiatry, vol. 23, no. 4, Oct. 2018, pp. 601–613. EBSCOhost, doi: 10.1177/1359104518775154.
10. Ping, Ng Sau, and Mahendran Maniam. “The Effectiveness of Facebook Group Discussions on Writing Performance: A Study in Matriculation College.” International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, vol. 4, no. 1, Mar. 2015, pp. 30–37. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1091701&site=eds-live&scope=site.