1. Can effective communication be achieved via social networking sites such as Facebook?

2. Do your believe that Facebook has had problems managing users' privacy or is this an instance of the selective perception of a few upset users? What influenced your answer?

3. Sheryl Sandberg is certainly under a lot of pressure to bring a mature edge to Facebook. What are the most significant challenges that she most likely faces when communicating with her younger peers, and how would you advise her to best deal with them?

4. Further research—Find as much information as you can about Mark Zuckerberg. Does he have what it takes to lead Facebook at this stage in its life? Is he making the right choices in terms of “communicating” himself and his firm to the world? What kind of constructive feedback would you give him?

Social networking web sites are a dime a dozen these days, so how does Facebook stay at the top? By expanding its user base and working with developers and advertisers to create fresh content that keeps users at the site for hours on end. But can Facebook keep up the growth while defl ecting concerns about its leadership?

The Perception Counts Mark Zuckerberg wants you to think diff erently about Facebook. Unlike most other young Silicon Valley CEOs, he’s got experience in managing the kind of changes in perception he hopes to bring about. In 2006 he opened Facebook with plans to convince advertisers— and developers—that social networking was more than kids’ stuff . Zuckerberg hopes to persuade these same two groups that Facebook is fi rmly seated at the top and successfully expanding into global markets.

Th ough Zuckerberg and Facebook have generated their share of controversy in recent years, there’s no denying that Facebook has been a runaway success. It is the third most traffi cked site on the Web, falling behind only Google and Microsoft. It is by far the most popular social networking site. Currently, more than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside college.

Applications for Every User Regardless of age or profession, what keeps users coming back to Facebook? Th e site relies on a host of internally and externally developed applications that integrate directly into the site to keep visitors’ eyes glued to Facebook for hours on end. Video is an extremely popular recent addition: the site ranks sixth for online video watching, and it directs more users to videos than the second biggest search provider.

Facebook sees the bleak economy as reason to press ahead with its plans for aggressive growth. Th e company is gearing up for more acquisitions, hiring rapidly, and rolling out new advertising programs. Moving beyond traditional online ads—the text and pictorial banners that show up on most Web sites—they believe that they can stand out among the crowd. Facebook began rolling out “engagement ads” encouraging users to respond to the pitches by commenting, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming fans of the ads themselves. By serving approximately one billion display ads, Facebook’s online advertising earned it $1.86 billion last year; $740 million of that came from major household brands like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.

As much as advertisers need Facebook users’ page views, Facebook wants to keep those advertisers as loyal customers. Facebook ads accounted for approximately 5% of all online ad buys last year and is expected to climb to 8% this year. Facebook ads can sell as inexpensively as two cents per 1,000 impressions—less than a similar buy at Yahoo! Th e pressure is on Facebook to continue to diff erentiate itself from other social networking sites, according to Jeff Ratner, a managing partner at WPP’s Mind- Share Interaction. If not, “Facebook doesn’t look that diff erent,” he said. “It just becomes another buy, and there are cheaper, more effi cient ways to reach eyes.” ………………….