Facebook is taking over the world one billion at a time. There are 3 billion people that use the internet daily and Facebook wants them to use Facebook. There are also another 3 billion set to be using the internet in the next five years. This is Facebook’s current primary target demographic.

Facebook has been growing ever since it hit opened to the public in 2006 growing to almost 100 million users in its first year in the market. Facebook became the sensation and everyone was talking about it. It has since then grown to support over 900 million users of its main app since its development and it does not seem to be slowing down or ready to get out of the market soon.

Facebook in a move to remain relevant set up a growth team in late 2007 to ensure that it does not become obsolete like other social media websites such as MySpace. This was the best investment the management at Facebook could have ever made since this team has clearly done their job.

Notable Achievements

Some of the notable achievements made by this team is continuously making Facebook user friendly and always making adjustments to attract new people ensuring there is constant activity on the site which in turn attracts advertisers which is how Facebook has made it’s millions.

On the Facebook site they have made adjustments such as ‘The people you may know’ segment, the ‘Suggest a friend’ for this person and the ‘check in’ to a place idea. All of this make Facebook enjoyable for users and ease the adaptability of the site for new users. The creation of pages and groups also helped people classify themselves into where they fit it and enjoyed the company of people with similar interests. All of this things helped in the exponential growth of Facebook.

Its desire to grow led it to purchase new and up and coming apps. Facebook best incorporates the phrase, if you can’t beat them join them. It sees the potential in other Apps and maybe feels threatened, buys them out so that they are not competition but part of the same team/goal with apps like Instagram, Whatsapp and the likes. All these have proven to be in favor of Facebook’s growth.

They went ahead to create an app that supports and synchronizes activity between all their apps to ensure the user never completely stays away. This has also facilitated a seamless user experience.

Having reached this height of success you would think Facebook would be content but alas, they want more.

In the works

Facebook is basically planning a global take over and judging by their history they will get it. They have initiated some programs to facilitate these. The most recent steps are:

App for low connectivity areas

For those with an internet connection problem worry not Facebook has got it in control. Facebook is in the process of finishing an app that support 2G internet. This will be used in areas which has slow internet connection. This app will prioritize loading stories that the user is looking at instead of simultaneously loading a lot of content so that the user ends up staring at grey boxes.

In order for employees to understand the struggle of the people and for them to develop an app that is user friendly, the company set up 2G Tuesday. On this day the staff have two hours of slow internet. This is clear evidence that the company is not only looking at America and Europe as its target but Africa, India and other Asian countries.  In India most of the population has 2G connectivity, and for a country with a population of 1.27 billion it is a definite target for Facebook’s takeover.

This has come in the wake of having the set up a ‘missed call’ feature instance in India, where advertisers pay to have their content viewed by the user, without of using the users data plan. In Africa Johannesburg, there’s a new sales office to enable it to reach its people in Africa.

Internet.org

The company most recently set up a non-profit organization Internet.org which is supposed to help places with no internet reach the information they require. The program is making an impact on people’s lives by providing free health, education, and economic information. BabyCenter and MAMA both reach millions of people around the globe with vital health information for pregnancy and parenting, including 3.4 million people through Free Basics alone.

It has also made other efforts to find a solution for places lacking the infrastructure. It is setting up a solar powered aircraft that will beam internet to areas that are not supported.  All this to ensure that its users are steadily going online. The intent is to change people’s lives by making information readily available.

This is also hand in hand with their free internet for Facebook campaign which has sited the unavailability of devices as one of the challenges it faces in its effort to bring internet to the world. They have partnered with local ISP’s to realize this and are pursuing it even further to make global accessibility a reality.

With such big dreams and such a committed growth team it is only a matter of time before this new goal they have set up is achieved as some major companies such as Nokia, Samsung, Opera, Qualcomm among others have already joined the band wagon.