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Generic and Intensive Strategies of Facebook

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Facebook (parent company: Meta) is the largest social media network and a favorite of social media marketers and brands worldwide. Its user base has continued to expand driven by growing popularity worldwide. Facebook also offers a large number of tools that marketers can use to reach their desired customer segments worldwide. It is a leader in digital marketing where Google is the largest player. 

In terms of mobile digital advertising, which is a leading source of revenue for Facebook, it is a leading competitor of Google. In December 2021, the number of active daily users of Meta reached 1.929 billion. Its number of monthly active users also reached 2.912 Billion in December 2021. Net revenue of the social media brand grew to $118 billion in fiscal 2021 which was 37% higher than the previous year. A very large part of its total revenue came from advertising. The total advertising revenue of Meta grew to $114.93 billion in 2021.

The global growth of Facebook as one of the world’s leading social media brands is based on technological innovation. You will learn about the generic and intensive strategies it has adopted to find faster global growth.

Generic strategies adopted by Meta (formerly Facebook Inc):

There are three generic strategies given by Michael E. Porter that include cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. Cost leadership is the strategy of leading on the basis of cost like Walmart does where it is the market leader in the retail industry in terms of pricing. The second strategy is that of differentiation where you create an outstanding and sufficiently differentiated product to win the market.

  For example, Apple has followed the strategy of technological differentiation to create an iPhone that is outstanding in terms of features and performance and caters to the higher end of the market. The third strategy is the focus strategy which has two subdivisions – cost focus and differentiation focus. Cost focus is when you reach a specific market segment through a cost leadership strategy.

Differentiation focus targets a specific market segment through differentiation. The generic strategy adopted by Meta is a mix of cost leadership and differentiation mainly. While the business model of Meta is not entirely built around the cost leadership proposition, it also offers distinct cost advantages.

Cost leadership:

Cost leadership is not the core strategy used by Meta since it does not mainly focus on providing low-cost options compared to its competitors. However, it is definitely an advantage that Facebook offers. Other social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn also offer some similar advantages. However, when it comes to having low-cost marketing options, Facebook owned by Meta is the leading social media channel that the marketers prefer.

You can access a large segment of consumers and use the free options to promote your brand and products and engage a very large number of followers on the social media network without even paying anything. Marketers also have the option of paid advertising on the social media platform. However, compared to other online advertising channels. Facebook uses a competitive pricing strategy. So, the competitive strategy adopted by Facebook is only partly cost leadership.

Differentiation:

Differentiation is the main competitive strategy adopted by Meta to grow its popularity and customer base as well as sales and revenue. Its core product Facebook enjoys very high popularity all over the world which is mainly because of its differentiated and outstanding features that attract users of all ages. It is not just the young people, but Facebook also boasts of a large customer base of people in their middle ages. A large number of business brands from around the world also use Facebook for promotions and customer engagement mainly since the technical features of the platform are most suited for marketing and customer engagement. There are more social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Linked In also but Facebook has differentiated itself from all the others.  

Intensive strategies used by Facebook:

 

There are three intensive strategies given by Michael E Porter including market penetration, market development, and product development. Market penetration is the strategy of selling more to your existing customers in a specific market. Market development, on the other hand, is the strategy of entering new markets to gain higher sales and revenue. Product development strategy focuses on developing new products to grow sales and revenue. All three are effective strategies for market expansion and can be used in combination to achieve higher growth. However, the main strategy that Facebook has adopted is that of market penetration. 

Market penetration:

It is the strategy of selling more to your existing customers. Over the past several years, Meta has focused on growing customer engagement and making its platforms including Whatsapp and Insta and AI products more attractive. This has helped the company improve its user base and find solid growth in recent years. Facebook is a global platform and offers worldwide access to users of all age and income groups. As more and more users access the internet each year, the user base of Facebook also continues to grow. So, in order to find growth, the company focuses on adding more users and engaging existing users better.

Market Development:

Market development is the strategy of entering new markets to grow the customer base. However, Meta had utilized this strategy during its initial phase of growth before the brand was worldwide popular. Now, it has already entered every market worldwide and so market development strategy does not work for Facebook or other social media and messaging platforms owned by Meta anymore. 

Product Development:

The product development strategy is the strategy of releasing new products and selling them to your existing customers. Meta acquired Instagram and Whatsapp to grow its customer base by adding new products. It has also added more products including reality labs to grow its market.

Diversification:

Diversification is the strategy of adding new channels fo revenue growth by diversifying into new business areas. It is an effective strategy of business growth and adopted by several businesses successfully. Businesses can create their own new business streams or they can acquire other businesses to diversify into new areas.  Facebook, now rebranded Meta acquired Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. The effort was mainly targeted at diversifying into virtual reality to grow a new revenue stream. Meta is no more just a social media platform but also expanding into newer business areas including VR and AI.  

In this way, you can see that how Meta, the parent company of Facebook has successfully achieved market  growth by investing in innovation and differentiation. It is an innovative technology brand that was able to acquire strong growth in digital advertising. The company offers a nice set of features for businesses and marketers to market their  brands and products. It has become a global brand and businesses from around the globe use Facebook to promote and grow their business.