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by: Anne Haynes

I was on office depot’s website the other day and noticed a FaceBook icon on the 2 inch binder product page. It made me confused :+*&? Huh, why in God’s name would anyone ever want a picture of a 2” binder on their FaceBook page? Oh friends please buy the same binder as me and become cool. I first began noticing these friendly little icons on specific internet pages late last year, but I’ve only recently noticed these icons throughout product detail pages. There had to be more to this concept, so I went searching the internet for more information on the FaceBook craze!

Back on October 11, 2007 Linda Bustos published an article around Ecommerce and FaceBook. The article is a good read and she mentions people complaining about the annoying application requests from friends. So, I logged into my FaceBook account for the first time in several months and WOW my page was on fire! I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of activity on my FaceBook page and without me doing anything. Then I started answering all the requests from my friends. It was CRAZY, but I downloaded the “Hatching Eggs” “My Starbucks”, “I Am Green”, “Movies” and a “Birthday Calendar” within seconds of my login.

On February 8, 2008 Internet Retailer reported on MySpace opening its doors for retailers. The article used Shop.com’s FaceBook application as an example of performance. Mondy Beller, senior vice president of marketing at Shop.com stated the results were underwhelming.

And just when I was losing interest during my research, I ran across the search marketing and money making perspective of the FaceBook phenomenon.

On March 8, 2008 Blue Sky Brothers gives the 411 on how to utilize Product or Fan Pages for niche marketing purposes. The article details why Product Pages are best because the Product/Fan Pages are public pages and not concealed behind a userid and password. In other words, the search engines are able to access the pages.

At this point I went back to my FaceBook applications and started interacting more with the features. While the applications are cute and fun, they take up time and it’s not convenient to be logged into FaceBook all day. However, I’m logged into iGoogle all day, so why not have these fun activities in the personalized search engine space? IGoogle is kinda like FaceBook, but without my friends. I added a couple of Gadgets to my iGoogle, but it’s not the same experience. If my iGoogle became more like FaceBook it would be more convenient. Instead it looks like FaceBook is becoming more like Google; adding instant messaging and possbily a full blown email service.

The next thoughts that came to mind regarding FaceBook Product Pages are around money. If I’m going to take the time to add a 2 inch binder from OfficeDepot to my FaceBook, when one sells, I want a commission. Even better a portion of every product sold off my Product Pages goes to a charity of my choice. If I can buy gifts for my friends, why not donate to my personal retirement fund. I’m still figuring out point applications, but it all still seems like a pain - can you say micro-billing?

While I haven’t done this yet, I’d like to make an Amazon Product Page with my affiliate tracking code in the page, so I can get a commission when one of my friends buys the book from my FaceBook Page.

For about two years now it’s bugged me that MySpace has text and rich media ads on my page and doesn’t play nice by sharing revenue or giving me something in return – besides free internet space.

These social networking sites need some consolidation. Read more on keeping up with the Social Media Jones’. I now have to change my social media site preferences from MySpace to FaceBook. It seems that most of the action is happening over at FaceBook.

Is anyone making any money on their FaceBook page? Or just losing time on the site?