Stop the presses! Smartphones are about to be socialized. As is his habit, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is about to take social media strategy and social networking down a whole new trail. It’s called Facebook Home, an enterprise between Google-owned Android and Facebook. “You’re going to be able to turn your Android phone into a great social device,” explains the Facebook CEO. “Our phones today are designed around apps, not people. We want to flip that around.”
The new Facebook Home basically takes over the Android interface. It trades out your Android homescreen and lockscreen with photos and updates from Facebook and Instagram. Wow! That’s different. This innovative social media strategy dovetails nicely with where the mobile phone use has been headed for a while. Smartphones like the Android and the iPhone are rarely used as a means of phoning friends. Now they are portable hard drives that send texts, play music and access the web to Tweet and catch up on Facebook. All Facebook Home does is the inevitable.
Facebook will utilize its huge base of 680+ million mobile users to introduce the new interface. So if you have an Android phone, expect to receive a message from Facebook inviting you download Home. This will be a different experience. Rather than rummaging through an app store and finding the application, users will be able to download Home directly from the source.
The new Facebook Home reboot is just the thing Android needed as the Microsoft Windows Phone begins to make inroads internationally. Up to now, the Windows Phone was the most socially adept of all the smartphones, allowing users to seamlessly integrate their Facebook friends with their contacts list. But you snooze and you lose.
Although Facebook Home may disadvantage the other smartphones, it could very well revolutionize mobile advertising for mobile ad agencies. Think of it! On a Facebook-centered mobile device, ads via Facebook would be unavoidable. Could top of screen equate with top of mind? It could happen.
We are a Dallas Advertising Agency specializing in Social Media Strategy.
