For a while now I have been thinking about facebook and how much sporting organisations in particular but business in general, are giving over the control of their customers to facebook.
A few people have got me thinking about this more and more.
@sammartino why would you use facebook ads to drive traffic to the Facebook site building their loyalty
@problogger social media sites are the spokes and your website the hub – you want to use the spokes to bring people into your hub
@danny__bishop advocating people setting up shops within facebook to keep the process seamless and stop them from thinking as much about the sale.
A person from my work saying maybe we should get up ticketing via facebook and not bother about an online shop.
I don’t think this is going to have any answers but more starting to think about my position.
I am a big fan of facebook to connection with fans/customers and building fan engagement, but there is part of me which worries about the reliance we’re having on facebook an how little control we have over this channel.
On the other side – it’s a case of fish where the fish are – the numbers of people on facebook are just phenomenal and you have to be there, making the purchase process easy by keeping people in facebook makes sense – but for how long is what I wonder.
Here is my list of pros and cons – do you agree, how much do you think we should be relying on facebook?
| Pros | Cons |
| Number of people on facebook | No control over what facebook will do with pages |
| Limiting the but barriers to purchase | Not driving people to the content on your website |
| Finding out more information on who your facebook followers are | Managing limited inventory such as ticketing, table bookings etc |
| Fishing where the fish are | Integrating application data into your business’ database |
| Seamless from promotion on facebook to selling | Impact of facebook money for selling – how will this effect cashflow |
Behind the Line 
Great post Kim. I think that while selling on Facebook is great in that you can offer a simpler buying process through a platform that people are comfortable with, ultimately it depends on your customer’s Facebook habits. I think that the risk of selling through Facebook can be justified in entertainment and media-focussed products, but would be much less effective in other industries. Facebook is all about content and is the place that people go to to waste time.
The step from watching a free video or playing a game to the step of purchasing for additional content or access is quite small compared to other products where you have little content to give away before requesting the sale.