Facebook's International Growth
More than 80% user base of facebook is outside USA. There are subtle as well as grounded reasons for this astonishing success. Recently, I read “The Facebook Effect” by David KrikPatrick, where he explained it in details. According to David, here are few key points for this success -
First, Mark Zuckerberg would like to make Facebook a global phenomenon from day one. He laid the foundation in his software as well as ensured that everyone understand the important of it. He kept the Facebook’s interface simple, clean and uncluttered. That were welcoming to every parts of the world. Another fundamental aspect is entitlement, you see only your friends. Around the world, this is the least American-feeling of American services.
Second, multi-language support in Facebook has entirely been done by Facebook users . To create a version of new language, Facebook provided a mechanism where it displayed multiple options for the translation for each slot. It let users choose one option. After that it asked users to vote for the best option. By using this mechanism, the french version was completed by 4000 users within 2 days.
Third, Mark had developed strategic partnership with the influenced people in the different regions. For example, he established close partnership with Hong Kong billionaire Li ka-Shing who helped him to roll out Facebook phone in Asia region.
Fourth, Facebook has exploded around the world for different reasons in each country. For example, in Indonesia, the Friendster had been a dominant Social network platform. The Internet usages shifted from PC to mobile. Friendster did not have a good mobile app. Facebook did and captured the market. In Taiwan, Facebook soured in 2009 for one reason – FarmVille game from Zynga. Playing it became a national obsession. Many joined simply to do so.
Mark Zuckerberg’s relentless focus on growth rather than on profit was one of the biggest reasons of international growth. Anyone who are interested in international marketing should definitely read ” Facebook and the world” chapter of the book.
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