by Eva Keogan, Head of Social, LBi ,
News broke yesterday that Facebook is courting the creative leads of UK digital agencies including LBi and has invited them to attend its first ‘Influencer Summit’ at its Palo Alto HQ in California. This marks an exciting shift in the stakeholder landscape as media agencies have been first at the table of the Facebook monetisation feast.
The event is essentially a brainstorm to evolve the next wave of social advertising and the shape it will take. Chris Clarke, our Chief Creative Officer, is one of the lucky ones who will attend the Facebook Summit.
‘It was an impressive invite and I’m easily tempted by fine wine.’ said Chris. ‘I’ve also got huge respect for Facebook and am intrigued to see first hand what they’re up to. As a business it’s obviously a formidable force, but as a brand it suffers from a bit of an image problem. Is this the beginning of them addressing that?’ he continued.
With the recent funding announcement and an IPO in the mix, needs to demonstrate that it has the depth and breadth of revenue streams to outlast less fortunate digital spaces which have experienced the boom and bust phenomenon; think Second Life and MySpace, if you will.
So while many of us who are running communities and getting good revenue streams from this social network may be thinking ‘How long before Facebook starts charging us for this ‘free to air’ platform?’ the Influencer Summit promises an exciting agenda and endless possibilities.
At LBi, we are increasingly aware that Facebook is fast becoming the de facto lead social network in most countries around the world. Russia, China, India and Brazil all have domestic networks which are putting up a good fight in the face of this global phenomenon but in countries like Germany and Spain, home grown social networks are shrinking in its wake.
What this means is that when global clients are making a decision about which social network to choose, Facebook is increasingly becoming the first choice. The world leading brands stay on top due to constant innovation, reinvention and pushing boundaries, so it makes sense that Facebook would aspire to do the same to court such a lucrative audience and what better way to do it than to crowdsource from the cream of the crop in the creative industry?
