The modern era of technological advancement has seen the development of social networking sites that have reduced the world into a global village. One of the forces to reckon with in social networking is Facebook Inc, which as a matter of fact is among the leading social networking sites. The position that the company has in the market aligns Facebook with its mission and vision statements.
Mission statement
The social networking company has developed an explicit mission statement that has guided the organization in developing programs aimed at building towards the mission statement ( Panmore Institute., 2018) . Zuckerberg, the founder, and chief executive officer at Facebook note the organization's mission statement "to give people power to share and make the world more open and connected". The mission statement was developed in light of the advancement in technology thus enabling the people to use technology to connect the people from different parts of the world was deemed an important aspect of the organization. In its mission statement, Facebook Inc. has three pillars which support the statement which include connecting the world and empowering people while enabling community building.
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In my opinion, the company’s mission statement can be reviewed and made to have a better appeal. As such I would propose the statement as “to give the people the power to share, connect, open up the world, and build a community through a secure and privacy guaranteed network”. As indicated earlier, technology is fast advancing which is bringing a security threat in cybercrimes ( Panmore Institute., 2018) . Governments and corporate organizations are investing more in regulations aimed at protecting data and promoting privacy. Including the creation of “a secure and privacy guaranteed network”, the mission statement would seem to align with the emerging trends in the era of technology.
Vision statement
Despite the company not having built an explicit vision statement, it is widely viewed that Zuckerberg in his talks has a vision of the company. Consequently, the vision statement of the company is embedded on making “people use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them” (Business Insider, 2017). The statement brings the social networking company as not a mere networking site.
I would opine that the organization rebuilds its vision statement to have “people use Facebook to facilitate knowledge acquisition, enhance communication while enabling people to stay connected with friends and family, discovering the world, and to share and express what matters to them”. Encouraging the organization to incorporate the aspects of facilitating knowledge and enhancing communication, the vision statement would bring a broader picture of the significant role that it plays in helping people exchange ideas and get more information.
Facebook objectives
Facebook Inc is bent on building and positioning itself to appeal to more social network users especially professionals and the business community ( Jurevicius, 2013) . Consequently, the organization is aiming at continuously improving its tools to enable businesses to interact with customers and provide immediate as well as unique feedback. Moreover, the organization aims at building capacity to enhance advertising for corporate organizations which will act to increase revenue through increased users.
Facebook strategies
Noting that there are numerous social networks that are competing with Facebook, the corporate organization has put in place strategies to help it maintain a competitive advantage over other players in social networking ( Sharon, Stremel, Adeagbo, Chang, Hewitt & Cahill, 2015) . One of the strategies the company is taking is acquisitions. Facebook has acquired Instagram which is a photo and video-sharing network. Instagram's growth has been remarkable in recent years and its acquisition by Facebook will work to increase revenues at Facebook and offer competition to other video-sharing platforms like Snapchat.
Additionally, Facebook is bent on closing on the LinkedIn’s competitive space. It is worth noting that Facebook has built capacity that is enabling its professional users to keep their private content from the professional content by creating a forum on which professionals can share experiences and useful insights as is the case with LinkedIn.
Internal Strengths
There are internal strategic factors at Facebook which have continuously played out to promote the company’s success (Fortune 500, 2017). The fact that the company has a strong image brand has made it more popular. Facebook prides itself in being a reliable provider of social media services. It can be argued that the strong image brand is working to attract new users especially advertisers which is making competitors find it hard to keep up with Facebook. Additionally, Facebook enjoys high revenues which are being used in research and development to support the considerably innovative human resource at the company.
Internal weaknesses
The long-term success at Facebook is plagued by numerous internal strategic factors. One of the significant internal weaknesses the company is facing is products and services that are imitable. Most of the services and products that Facebook is offering can be imitated by competitors making the company vulnerable to competition ( Grant, 2016) . Moreover, the company faces a negative impact that is created by online advertising. In many cases, users perceive the ads popping up on the social networking site as rather disruptive and a nuisance to the user experience. Furthermore, Facebook fails terribly in diversification which creates the potential of the company failing due to maximized market risk exposure.
External opportunities
Facebook is looking at many external opportunities in social networking. Microsoft has collaborated with Facebook to work on banner advertising with several ads having been put on Facebook for advertising. Moreover, business entities have sought to undertake internet marketing with Facebook topping the priority list compared to other social networks.
External threats
As indicated earlier cybercrimes and cyberbullying are on the rise ( Brooks, Heffner & Henderson, 2014) . Many accounts at Facebook are fake accounts and users may lose interest on the social networking site. Subsequently, the company faces a threat in the legal environment for failing to protect user data. There are a number of social networking sites that are developing content similar to that on Facebook and as such may pose competition to the organization.
Recommendations
In light of the numerous opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths at Facebook, several recommendations can be made. Facebook needs to invest more in research and development to enable counter cyber crimes as well as act as a basis for diversification. Additionally, the organization should engage the legislative agencies to develop a framework through which regulations on cybercrimes and user protection can be developed and implemented. Moreover, Facebook needs to strengthen partnerships with other companies as is the case with Microsoft to explore new opportunities that will improve the competitive advantage of the organization.
References
Brooks, G., Heffner, A., & Henderson, D. (2014). A SWOT analysis of competitive knowledge from social media for a small start-up business. The Review of Business Information Systems (Online) , 18 (1), 23.
Grant, R. M. (2016). Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition . John Wiley & Sons.
Facebook has a new mission statement: 'to bring the world closer together'. (2017, June 22). Retrieved from https://nordic.businessinsider.com/new-facebook-mission-statement-2017-6?r=UK&IR=T
Facebook Inc. SWOT Analysis & Recommendations - Panmore Institute. (2018, June 14). Retrieved from http://panmore.com/facebook-inc-swot-analysis-recommendations
Facebook Inc.'s Mission Statement & Vision Statement (An Analysis) - Panmore Institute. (2018, September 14). Retrieved from http://panmore.com/facebook-inc-vision-statement-mission-statement
Jurevicius, O. (2013, February 16). Facebook Company SWOT analysis 2013. Retrieved from https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/facebook-swot-analysis.html
Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Facebook's New Mission. (2017, June 22). Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2017/06/22/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-mission-groups/
Sharon, E. M., Stremel, J., Adeagbo, O. A., Chang, W., Hewitt, J., & Cahill, M. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,119,027 . Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
