Custom «The Future of Facebook» Essay Paper Sample

The social network business has taken a new dimension with the advent of new social network sites. The social network is under one of the biggest shake ups. Facebook which has been so dominant in the social site has started to face stiff competition (Lawrence, 2008). This has cased challenges of the social media. To stay afloat in the business facebook has decided to involve in new strategies, to keep at par with the rest of the social networks. This should consider the users who should consider the advertisement opportunities in the venture. The strategies involved will help in building a base and maintaining the esteemed customers. Employees rights are to be protected and government policies put into consideration. Plans to keep the Facebook business in the market include having legitimate business plan and principled political actions. The plan is to help keep the social network grow and thrive.

Merger or partnership with other social networks can be a solution to the competition. Increase of charges for online advertisements to increase profitability. Doing business as a single venture, involves the lowering of charges in advertisement (Lawrence, 2008). This method will increase competition with the opponents. Employing managers in different sections of retail locations or giving the retailers incentive to increase their sales. Having better consumer protection strategies and having healthful working ethical codes. All these should be well maintained to succeed in the industry that is facing a lot of competition.

 The advancement in the use of dual personality and connection to the social media is an issue to consider. Other social networks coming into place and considering the stiff competition facebook has ventured into new strategies that will be discussed in the rest of the report. Using the site in sharing, applications to use, and finding new feature are some of the areas looked at.

Business and Politics

Facebook has not been actively involved in politics. The new strategy of making it competitive requires the site to politically be active. The participation of facebook in politic involves its influence on the economic, social, political and management of issues. It involves making decisions on human social activity (Lawrence, 2008). This can be done by being transparent by the parties involved.  The participation of politics can be on administrative or citizen perspective. The administrative perspective involves building public support for its activities. This participation is legally mandated in giving information.

Citizen participation requires one to pressurize decisions in a channeled way. Facebook has faced a number of bans from the governments. The bans were a result of obscenity and not privacy issues. The political pressure is behind the bans. Each government has its own regulations regarding the use of facebook. Facebook educating its staff on how to manage politics in their sites is necessary. The challenge is to try and keep the online privacy. This is because the different political settings have different leeways on this. Keeping the privacy of watchdogs groups managed is another challenge. Facebook is trying to educate people on how online privacy affects the users (Post, 2002).

The politics of many nations can be determined by facebook. It can shift the political career of many politicians. It can be a disaster too if not well managed. The sites can be used to voice for rights and issues affecting them. This can involve healthy political debates and progresses. The inability to end accounts of users without deleting the contents first is a problem that facebook has faced. The impact of facebook in politics is limited compared to real life impact. There has been an argument that people do not interact socially, and as such they are not taking part in political matters. This has brought politically motivated hacking styles. Activists have taken advantage of the social site to give political information. Distribution and redistribution of information by facebook in politics through campaigns has been done through families and friends.

The political action tactics that can be used by Facebook involve the use of the site to publish political matters (Lawrence, 2008). This can be done by the lobby groups, political action committees, grass root campaigns and litigation methods in the site. The process will involve having an influence in the political players. Facebook can use its pages to advertise political campaigns messages. This can be shown by the advertising factor of facebook in swaying voters in a number of elections. Using products on the facebook site that appeal to voters can be a way of doing business. The advertisements can target the voter with messages on the various candidates. Facebook can use of polling data, facebook profiles, and having saturation of advertisements near the election date. The facebook ads are likely to influence the voting patterns of the voters.

Facebook can legally channel donations to political parties candidates they favor. It gives its employees an avenue of expressing their political stands in the site. This can be done by considering the legislation and regulations in place. Facebook has also expanded its political PR by lobbying in Washington and using a lot of money for this exercise. The money has been used in hiring high profile politicians in power. This strategy saw the staffing of facebook management by former politicians.

Constituency building strategy can be built effectively by use of new designs of technology, new media strategy, campaigns and a robust strategy in place (Post, 2002). The design should be clear in the message and make it shine. The online presence should be felt by all groups of users. The strategy should be based on the industry standards, usability, and result oriented objectives. In terms of technology the applications should meet user’s perception and scalability. To reach the goals of facebook, they have to grow the business. The constituency building should involve strategies that management can use to generate political influence. This is done by involving and adopting the new development platforms in place. These should be reliable and stylish to meet customer’s needs.

A favorable social media strategy involves the use of live updates, videos an engaging the users with fast information. This makes it have a physically powerful social media existence. Online campaigns can be involved to increase funding and growth of the site. These will increase visibility hence a sturdy online presence. This help to grow the grassroots experience. The staff member’s should have the necessary skills in achieving these objectives. Campaigns should be done enough to increase the online presence. A good strategy of having the staff working in collaboration with the management is crucial.

The Facebook ads should be used to generate income for adoption of the strategy. The plan for constituency building strategy should include project preparedness internationally. Regional development and additional organizational capacity building strategies in cooperated in the management of the firm. Others can be policy advocacy, public awareness, and the building of the constituency.  All these are important for the success of facebook. The future of facebook requires long term plans to indicate the direction to take in achieving goals. The steps taken and followed to get the outcomes will determine the success of the social site (Schwartz, 2011). Involving technical skills is another crucial strategy.

Frame works for social plan have to be developed. The frame works should involve fundamentals for a successful social project plan. The plans should go beyond marketing, to increase their constituency and market growth.  The social vision and strategy is to be developed. The constituency experience and organizational collaboration change in the firm is expected from the strategies involved. Having significant social processes and social information is crucial. Social metrics and social technology are also beneficial important in constituency building. Using the strategies can reduce facebook risks in business and improve its performance.

The policies available in place, designs and other consideration are tools facebook can use to advance its agenda. The social network used by many people can be used to drive their agenda. The resources it has can be used to influence the public in support in their objective. The legislation and regulations in place that control its activities can be exploited to drive its agenda. The tools can be used to impact on the public nature and services offered. The identity of the public can also be affected.

The digitization of information to perspectives in discussion of topics can be exploited. This can include democracy discussion on their bogs. Their internet can be used for growth by exploiting political interests. This can be achieved by sponsoring the politicians in their activities. They can use the tools to put strong privacy settings and rules. This helps in controlling their privacy (Schwartz, 2011). The site can be used to demand customer privacy regulations. The collection of data by online services to advertise can also be controlled too. Facebook can automatically share personal data for user’s friends with advertisers. The site should be neutral but open up its network for control and premiums. Help in technology lobbying by having politicians in their payroll.

Facebook stakeholder’s management is essential for the success of the site. Identifying the stakeholders, their influence, and interests is crucial in success of the firm. Managing the stakeholder’s needs a plan to be laid down, and followed by the firm. The stakeholders of facebook are both the organization and the users. These groups can be managed by online privacy, ability to terminate accounts of offenders and having child safety rights. Advertisements in facebooks should be kept in links, pages and groups that they are intended. User contents, links, forums and groups should be monitored to prevent topics that can be controversial and raise public protest.

Censorship issues should be taken into account in the site and off it. The content format should allow for content automatic expiry. The reputation of facebook should be kept. The use of stakeholders can be used to shape the direction of facebook in future. The quality of services offered shaped by the opinions given from stakeholders. Resources can also be achieved by engaging with powerful stakeholders and this will lead to success. Communicating with stakeholders in time and frequently can make them support strategies of the site. Using stakeholders plans can be build to increase the support of users.

Consumer Protection

Rights of consumers are upheld in facebook unless they are not allowed on laws. Increasing the prices of advertisement charges for the firm to be more profitable can be a breach of the consumer rights. Ethical practices need to be followed to uphold consumer rights. Laws in place put a relationship between consumers and providers of services. Consumers have to understand their rights, obligations, and responsibilities in using the services of the firm. The consumer should be informed of the new development of the firm (Schwartz, 2011). The owners have the responsibility to inform the consumers on any issue of their product.

The owners though have a right to market and enhance their products in making increase sales. The consumer has more rights and powers to look for product services before using it. The consumer should have basic information on product, safety in its use, the right to be informed, the right to choose, the right to be heard, right to readdress, educated and the right to a healthy environment of using the product.

The spending of countless hours by users on the internet, and resulting to physical and emotional effects is a problem faced by the firm. The social network can be held liable if rules and regulations set are not followed in giving the services to the user. The internet is open to everyone and controlling it, is hard. The only possibility available in dealing with the case is to tackle illegal contents on the internet. This involves having ways of controlling the user access to the internet. Countries have rules dealing with off-line or on-line offences (James, 2002). Advocating for use of filtering software’s can help in operation and content of the sites. Censorship, control and regulation are other methods that can be used that have personal choices.

There are arguments that controlling the internet is against rights of freedom of expression. The internet is also different in terms of communication so controlling it, is hard. Regulating the site is hard as it is global and so large, and countries can have own regulations. Having filtering software’s can be imperfect, as those sites can be of importance to other users. There is also other advancement of the argument, that teachers and parents are the ones who should control and protect the children. Facebook can use self regulation methods in their site. They can also consider the use constitutional laws, and they can talk to the governments in advancing their case.  They can involve strategies like having a statutory approach, as well as rating and filtering their sites. Liability of material in the sites should also be considered any time a blog is posted.

Facebook has been involved in a number of consumer protection strategies. The use of facebook in protecting ones privacy is one of such issues. The privacy settings that help in protecting a user have been poor. Strategies have been done to improve this. The government has come in to regulate the facebook site because of security issues. Businesses and users who are upset with facebook seek government intervention to protect them. The setting and managing of the face book site has been improved to protect the users (Post, 2002). This is as a result of the need to supervise the potential of the users.

Adjustments have to be made frequently in the product, to keep it competitively in the market. Users that publish information that can lead to prosecution have to be warned. The future of online privacy comes into question in such matters. The challenge is to make users adhere to the instructions.  The diverse nature of the users is another challenge in keeping the privacy of the product. Needs evolve and change with advancement of technology. The government laws and regulations need to be followed. This becomes hard if users do not have privacy settings. The site can face prosecution from the government as a result.

Facebook should act ethically to keep its customers trust and have strong business. The ethical values in place help users to have a bond with the products. This involves integrity issues and ethical standards considered in dealing with the stakeholders. The reputation of the company needs to be kept whether they merge with Google, to form “Foogle”. Having the trust of the customers will make them have a long term advantage. The managers and employees need to be responsible. The “category managers” and retailers should have standard sets of codes to be used that are set from the managers. Health and safety issues should be put into consideration like the onscreen warnings that are already in place to protect the user.

Equal opportunities should be afforded to all employees and users whether the firm is going to be politically active. The environment and relationship with other business partners should be kept and maintained by not engaging in conflict of interest. Facebook should decide on the partnership and strategy to use. This strategy when followed in time will help the firm to keep in competition from the other competitors (Schwartz, 2011). The resources, assets and political affiliations should be well set out to prevent conflicts of interest in the firm. Legal compliance to setout rules and regulations is another ethical issue that facebook should consider.

        Managers are influential in setting the ethical tone of facebook as ethical issues emanate from the top. The atmosphere should be set by managers to the employees. The willingness of management to drive values pertinent to the organization sets a tone to solve the problems faced. Goals set should be followed by all employees by involving all in training. The manager should establish a trust, communicate the ethical issues, act, and reflect on the values. The developing of ethical code of Ethics or Standards of Conduct is necessary for the management. This makes the ethical standards effective and easier to follow the firm’s goals. Managers who face crisis in terms of ethical issues can undermine the competitive strength of the firm. The climate in terms of ethical issues is normally set by the management. This requires an ethical tone to be set by the managers (Post, 2002). They have to reinforce the values to affect the other employees in the other levels of organization. This can help the manager to know how to act in case of dilemma in the ethical problems. The way the issues are handled can make or break an organization in having faith in the management. The management is involved in making decisions.

Conclusion

      The future of Facebook will depend largely on how it deals with emerging designs, technology, and regulations in place. The multi billion social network industries need to have well managed. The growth of new subscribers is increasing and competition. This means facebook ha to develop strategies in keeping with the trend that is developing in the social network. Research however, shows that growth has gone down over the last months thus need for better strategies to keep the customers. The plans considered and implications should be all considered. By analyzing the problems identified and offering better solutions is the answer to the challenge faced. Merger issues should be well thought out and the retail business (Post, 2002). Steps taken to address the future of facebook involves considering the users, environment, politics, technology, and economics in shaping the firm.