Observation on making profits from “nothing” like Facebook
The answer to the age old question “how can I make money from nothing?” is usually “it’s impossible.” Which, logically, I guess is correct. But in business, maximizing profits and revenues from a pre-existing product or service is key, and it’s something Facebook has impressed me with the past few months.
Facebook example
I’m assuming most e
veryone reading this is familiar with the growing social networking site that is Facebook. com, so I won’t insult your intelligence with background info.
To the example: Facebook has recently offered free gifts that members can give to other friends. Normally, gifts cost like a buck to send to friends, so this free gift is something a lot of people are excited about. So recently, the free gift was the gift of a Sunkist can of pop.
Simply genius in my opinion. Why if you haven’t figured it out yet?
- Facebooks creates value in a “nothing” or made up product by charging $1 for this profile eye candy.
- Facebook creates hype and excitement among its members by offering these sweet profile gifts for free.
- Facebook charges Sunkist bundles of money to offer its products as gifts for free.
- People give these gifts, and on basically everyone’s homepage in the entire Facebook network, there will be a news feed notifying them that one of their friends sent / received one of these Free gifts of Sunkist pop.
They’ve been at this for awhile, so this post is a little overdue. Because I remember one case a couple months ago where a Dr. Pepper can was free.
But the lesson from this? Find creative ways to create value in “nothings” and sell them or give them away (if ad supported). I hope to one day find a large real world application of this same concept. In the meanwhile, I will continue to give kudos to innovative thinkers like Facebook.
well it is not a original idea its been around for a while..