Krista speaks with Nick ONeill about the Facebook phenomenon and how it has transformed how businesses do their social marketing, as well as social gaming, and how it’s impacted the Facebook gaming platform.

Krista Montes de Oca
Media Program Analyst

Facebook has taken the world by storm, evolving into its own world of social media. From its inception, it was a tool to keep people connected, share photos and write on each other’s walls. Now, it’s a way for businesses to communicate their message and engage their audience and consumers. I interviewed Nick ONeill, founder of Social Times Inc., about the influence of Facebook on social marketing, and the social gaming phenomenon.

Businesses are learning how to leverage social media to brand their image and interact with their customers. Besides creating a Fan Page, how else can businesses better utilize Facebook?

ONeill: Buying Facebook Ads is pretty much the other primary way. While you can do things like create Facebook groups, custom Facebook applications, develop a more personal profile, create events, and a number of other things, Facebook Pages truly are the center of Facebook marketing right now.

How has the introduction of social gaming affected Facebook, and vice versa?

ONeill: I think it has affected the Platform more than anything else. It also has increased the total amount of time spent on the site. There’s some statistic floating around that 40% of users play games on Facebook. While I’m not sure about the accuracy of that statistic, it emphasizes how large of an industry Facebook games has become. The primary thing games have done is it has accelerated Facebook’s push to turn Facebook Credits into the leading virtual currency.

Both adults and children are using Facebook as a social networking tool—what other differences do you see between these generations, besides those obvious aforementioned ones (age, knowledge of social media in general)?

ONeill: I don’t monitor the youth much to be honest, as I tend to think of myself as one (although not so much anymore). I think the only difference is how much time each group spends on them. The younger, the more time they spend online.

What other tools, similar to Facebook, are useful for social marketing purposes, that perhaps people are not aware of?

ONeill: There’s a world outside of Facebook? Oh yeah, blogs and Twitter. Aside from that I’m not sure I’d pay attention to anything else, or at least I wouldn’t be investing too much time in it yet. Email marketing doesn’t fall into “social media” however it’s still a very big business and growing by the day.

Facebook has come along way so far; where do you see Facebook going in the future?

ONeill: Everywhere. Why not become its own virtual country? Perhaps it’s the future of passports? Then again I doubt any countries will support that notion. More seriously, I think in the immediate future we’ll see them expand their Facebook Credits offering. Once they’ve figured out a way to scale their existing advertising business, they’ll move that off site to third-party publishers and then eventually do the same thing for Credits. With those two businesses they’ll be able to reach many billions of dollars in revenue each year.

Social Times Inc. is a site dedicated to covering the convergence of social technology, advertising and new media. They host events around the country and produce a blog and newsletter to keep readers informed of news that impacts their businesses. ONeill graduated Cum Laude with a BSBA in Finance from American University Kogod School of Business.