Now that the Facebook Kit for SharePoint (FKS) has been RTM for a few weeks, I wanted to take a quick opportunity to discuss some of the business value I see an organization can gain by using the kit. In particular, I want to call out the embedded sharing feature and the comments web part that is available in the FKS.
Both of these features to me are really exciting because of their potential to take a piece of content and rapidly distribute that content to millions of potential consumers. I think the term "Viral Growth" fits well with this because of the recursive nature of how the content can be distributed. For instance, say I Share to all my friends a new feature I released at my software company. Facebook now takes that content and opens a window of proliferation and exponential distribution. Not only will my friends get a notification on their wall that I've release this new product, but any of their friends that see or follow their wall will also see the product release. What's more is when a friend, or a friend of a friend sees a published piece of content, they can react to it by leaving comments on the post. This will create a new post on their wall saying they've reacted to some content, and now all their friends will see that reaction and they can also react. And then their friends, and their friends' friends, and so on.
Bottom line – no need to send SPAM emails; just share the content to FACEBOOK! (that doesn't mean it's not still SPAM though J)
Case in point, I'm using the comments web part to capture comments on my blog posts. Notice how I can see when people leave comments on my blog posts:
And my friends can see when I reply to their comments:
These same reactions occur when you share a piece of content using the embedded sharing feature:
(http://philwicklund.com/archive/2009/03/04/embedded-sharing-with-the-facebook-kit-for-sharepoint-–-fks-version-0-5.aspx)
As you can imagine, by using the FKS you can easily "push" content to world. A few business sectors I see that would really benefit by using this approach are:
-Manufacturers & Software Companies: publish new feature releases, etc.
-Think Tanks: Political organizations or philosophical groups who want to proliferate their ideas.
-Religious Organizations
-ANYONE WHO HAS A BLOG! – why settle for commenting engines that don't get your blog posts distributed to a larger audience? FYI, Facebook claims that bloggers on average see a 40% increase in comments when using their commenting engine!!! Sounds like a no brainer to me.
So, now that I'm wrapping up the post, one question remains… Is this the dawn of a new generation of social networking? It seems to me that Facebook is becoming less of a tool used to connect people to each other, and is "maturing" into a tool used to distribute ideas, news, and information.
Call it "Social Communication" perhaps?
Phil
Facebook Kit for SharePoint - Home Page
http://philwicklund.com/freeware/fks/default.aspx