Barely a month since its listing on the Nasdaq, Facebook has received a bad rep for its falling stocks. In a bid to show investors avenues of making money however, the world’s largest social networking site has begun mobile advertising.
In the US, more people access facebook through their mobile devices other than the desktop. This means Facebook ads receive less viewership.
In Africa, majority of the Facebook users access their accounts through their mobile phones.
Africa has over 40 million Facebook accounts, as of December last year.
Study shows that Facebook is accessed more on mobile phones in Africa. Egypt has the highest number of Facebook accounts in Africa, boasting over 10 million accounts, distantly followed by South Africa, which has 4.6 million. Kenya is seventh with 1.3 million users.
In Kenya, mobile operators such as Orange and Yu Mobile allow users who do not have Internet enabled phones, to access their Facebook accounts. It is yet to be seen if ads could be served this way.
The mobile advertising would see ads served through smartphones apps and native facebook apps. The roll out to basic internet enabled phones would serve as a boost to the African Market.
Mobile advertising is one of the growing sectors in Africa. Advertising channels such as Bloovue, Twinpine Network and InMobi would welcome this great move by Facebook to offer mobile advertising.
Facebook has in the recent past made major changes to its network including introduction of a tier management for Facebook pages. This means that the owner of a Facebook page can assign different tasks to various people, including who can post status update and who can manage comments on any page.
Facebook also is rolling out “sponsored posts” for pages and brands. To reach more of the Facebook page members, owners of the pages will have to pay a little more to have their status updates read by more people.
Facebook’s new strategies are meant to spruce up its image in front of investors.
