One of the most interesting things I’ve found this week is a little part in the Facebook S-1 filing for going public. If you haven’t paid attention this week, or like me, sick thanks to your son bringing something nasty home from school, Facebook filed to go public. Well, as part of that filing they are required to disclose any internal discussions about any threats to their business model: in other words, competitors that could take them over.
It’s no surprise of course that they included Google+ as a possible threat to their business, but there was a whole list of other sites that they feel could eventually affect their bottom line. From a purely media standpoint this is interesting, because it means that Facebook acknowledges that they could go the way of Myspace eventually. However, from a performance marketing perspective, it puts millions of dollars of research from Facebook into possible and real traffic sources.
One of the sources that they have identified as a potential threat is the site Pinterest, which according to Shareaholic drove more refer traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube…combined. Of course, it comes nowhere near Facebook right now, but it was enough that Facebook considers it a possible threat to their long term business. What’s more interesting about this, is that it’s still in theory in Beta and not open to everyone.
That’s really interesting, because it’s a totally different social networking system, completely different than Facebook, where people can organize and share images that you find interesting. This is a great opportunity for content marketing, especially in time where Google has slapped the daylights out of article marketers looking for new ways to present topics. It’s perfect for infographics, how-to-guides and since you can embed links, a great way to drive targeted traffic.
Stuff like this excites me, not because I think that Mark Zuckerbuerg is really the Anti-Christ and hope for Facebook’s eventual demise, but because it means that new amazing traffic sources are always available for marketers. With places like Facebook turning away marketers daily, we are always looking for new sources.
Anyway, I don’t have a Pinterest account, but if anyone wants to invite me, I’m all for it.
