The Secret of Facebooks Success - Case Study Example

 oday, the statistic shows 300 million active users whom 50% of that users are logging on to Facebook at any given day (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics). What makes this social networking site so cool and engaging? What makes it so different from any other sites that has the same platform? What are the factors of its success? If speed of growth is the major factor of the Facebook’s success, there must be reasons then that this speedy growth is taking place.1. User friendly interface – compared to other social networking media, Facefook is so much easier to use.

According to Regnard Raquendan, (web and usability consultant), the key that holds the success of Facebook is its usability (http://webstandards.raquedan.com/?p=251). Its applications are very easy to learn, no wonder even older people find it easy to use. Its efficiency is quite remarkable; it performs actions fast, from friend recommendations to displaying of mutual friends. Its graphic design and layout is consistent. People are satisfied with its simplicity (Rquendan, 2008). 2. Strong links – in the world of technology, strong links means the capability to connect with other people and institutions easily or effortlessly.

Strong links allow people to have direct communication with other people. In social point of view, these strong links are equivalent to families, close friends and colleagues. Weak links namely friends of friends, acquaintances, co-church members, and many others like these are also social links no matter what. In connection with Facebook, it is this power to connect people is the one that contributes to its success. It can easily link people together, and those who are not close to each other have now the opportunity to know each other better, and become true friends.

It has the ability to strengthen socially weak links and turn it into strong ones (http://www.qdh.org.uk/wordpress/?p=319). By this virtue Facebook grows successfully. 3. Power of Persuasion – in a BBC news article “Learning what makes Facebook tick” by Maggie Shiels, it has been discussed how the power of persuasion plays also a major part in the success of Facebook (Shiels, 2008). Professor BJ Fogg, a pioneering persuasion psychologist says: "When Facebook came along I was one of the developers at the launch and what struck me was how there was this new form of persuasion.

This mass interpersonal persuasion." They made this research regarding understanding the psychology of Facebook and its success; they have discussed the effect of a posted picture and what it says about the person who posted it. What is the effect of a question mark instead of the picture of the person who owns the account? It persuades a person to post his picture instead of leaving that question mark, the underlying driver here is the need to be socially accepted and its flipside according to Fogg is not to be rejected.

People want to be regarded in certain ways, and that is the point of Fogg’s theory of persuasion (Shiels, 2008). Consequently because of this feature of Facebook, it has become very engaging and in demand for many people to use.Conclusion: Back again to the question; is the speed of growth important to Facebook’s success? The answer is definitely yes. However, when people look at the success of this social networking site they should look deeper than the surface. The fact of its success relies greatly on the intelligent design of this website.

The user-friendly interface is very practical; therefore even older folks are using it. Its strong link characteristic practically connects everybody, giving it a mushroom multiplication effect. Its lure on individuals to post their pictures, to shout out their views, and to persuade others to the same is truly incredible. Therefore the speed of growth that is said to be important to its success is dependent only to the overall intelligent engineering of this network.