BEIL FYI: Google Moving into New Social Networking Territory

Can Facebook withstand other encroaching social networks and highly strategic search engines?

With its recent purchase of Wildfire, a software that enables both businesses and individuals to run effective marketing campaigns on social media, Google has taken a major step into what has traditionally been considered to be Facebook territory. And the search engine giant is just getting started. Google reportedly paid $350 million for Wildfire and has invested an estimated $1.3 billion to acquire other software and expertise based around not social networking, but advertising effectively in social networks[1]. The lesson to be learned here? Facebook’s not in the clear yet.

Google has promoted Google+ heavily, and use is growing, but Facebook clearly still dominates the social networking scene. However, if Google can dominate the effective advertising options within social media, the money is not far behind. Although Facebook is enormously popular with users, it has floundered when it comes to effectively selling advertising, particularly  since, as one analyst puts it, “social-media marketing consists mainly of contests, coupon-like promotions, and similar campaigns.”

If Google can develop an accurate, effective, productive way to advertise through Facebook – or around it for that matter – the entire landscape of social media and social marketing could change. Do you think this would be a good thing or a bad one?

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