Write to celebrities: Facebook’s feature is still going forward
Posted on septembre 28, 2013 by Frank
As we all know, the social media giant is always looking for more and more ways to generate revenues. After a failed IPO that put a lot of pressure on Mark Zuckerberg, the monetizing team started to get a bit more creative to get some extra dough. In December 2013, for example, Facebook announced that it would test a paid feature to allow you to contact people outside of your friend’s network. A few people were included in these tests, which would allow filtering the spam that some users tend to receive.
The first apprehensions
At first, some people disliked the idea as it seemed like a way for unwanted people to contact you. Instead of being sent in the “Others” section of your mailbox, which is rarely read by most of us, the people who would pay Facebook would automatically gain access to your inbox. A 1$ price tag was suggested at that time: even though mass marketers would probably consider this as way too expensive for untargeted advertising, some people would still pay a lot more in order to be able to speak to you. For example, imagine an ex-boyfriend who still dreams of you at night and would spend hundreds of dollars to try reconquering you… spooky? Be glad, this still isn’t possible and has not been announced for the near future.
Contacting your favorite celebrity… for a fee
In the United Kingdom as well as in 36 other countries, users have now access to an exclusive way to contact known people. For a fee that varies from less than a pound to more than 10 pounds (based on the fame of the person), it will be possible to get your message directly into the inbox of that person. The price will vary on many different factors, including the current amount of followers the celebrity boasts as well as the amount of messages he or she received in the past weeks. There is, however, a pretty big problem with that feature: nothing guarantees that you will have an answer from the person that you contact!
How much would you pay to contact Brad Pitt?
A limitation in the amount of messages received?
CNN wrote recently that Facebook would probably limit the amount of messages that a celebrity could receive to one per week. For huge names, it sounds like such a harsh limitation could push the prices to a much higher level than 10 pounds (or 15 dollars in the US).
The evolution of Facebook’s monetization plan
In the beginning, there were almost no ads on Facebook. The sole focus of Mark Zuckerberg andd his team was simply to build an audience and to make Facebook one of the most used websites in the world. With more than one billion users all over the world, the company started to look for as many ways as possible to make money – as said before, to satisfy the investors that are pushing behind.
Here are some ways that the social network has used so far.
Social games and payments: Many game editors – Zynga being amongst the most notorious ones – decided to implement paid products as a way to monetize their games. In a holdem poker game, for example, people who are out of chips have 2 possibilites: spamming their friends into oblivion to get some bonuses or pay to get more. Farmville and its many siblings, on another side, will ask the users to pay to get more « actions », to get vegetables that grow in a quicker fashion… in the end, a part of your expenditures will go directly to Facebook.
Sponsored posts: If you have something extremely important to say to the crowd, it is possible to pay so that your post will be featured to everybody. At least, this plan had been thought about by Facebook some time ago. Now, I do not believe this is still possible as of today – correct me if I am wrong. Compagnies do have sponsored posts in some people newsfeed, but your sister’s wedding won’t be publicized that way. This lead to another kind of advertising, though: sponsored ads.
Sponsored ads: Advertisers do not want to pay so that their ad is featured to a ton of people that do not care at all for the product or service. With the sponsored ad, you can place advertisement (promoting your facebook page, for example)) in the newsfeed of users that are friends of people who like your brand. If your friend is fan of the website-building platform Wix, for example, Facebook will make sure you know it and you understand the advantages of using wix. If your friend liked the Custom my device page to get a new customized iphone cover, you’ll also learn about it for sure!
Side ads: Of course, you have noticed the very numerous ads that are installed on the right side-bar of Google. Thanks to your web browsing history, your social status and many things that advertisers can munch from your personal data, relevant-ish websites will be suggested. For example, if you are single, Facebook will recommend you to use Christian dating websites, Muslim dating websites, Russian dating websites… and a lot more, actually. You also get ads related to online money making, MBAs abroad and much more.
Gift cards: You can now buy a gift card for the people you love. This Facebook-specific gift card will allow to buy credits for the games that are working on the social network. In the past, Facebook even allowed you to send physical goods to your friends or family by using the « send a gift » feature. Facebook would remind you the birthday of your girlfriend and you could deliver roses to her doorstep before the end of the day: what a fantastic way to save your ass, right? It, was, though, a bit unpopular, hence the focus on gift cards. It seems you can still get gifts cards for physical store, even though I could not check the feature by myself at the time of publishing this post.
Facebook deals: Did you know that Facebook even tried to imitate Groupon by launching a similar deals feature on its platform? It died after only 4 months, though: the users didn’t seem to find so much interest. If most users did not notice that it even existed, the failure could maybe be attributed to a lack of promotion.
Well, they ARE making some money out of you, my friend.
Paid messages – will they work?
Seeing that much more promising features that Facebook implemented have failed, it is a bit doubtful that paid messages will see a lot of popularity. It might stay as a spinoff feature but will most probably never be launched all around the world.
What do you think about this controversial formula? Are there some people that you would pay to contact? What is the maximum amount you would be ready to fork out to speak with, for example, Lady Gaga or Katy Perry? I would be curious to read about your opinion in the comments below.