Facebook: the future of marketing

Facebook: the future of marketing

We asked Simon Law, the voice behind Cruise & Maritime Voyages‘ social media channels, to offer us his advice, tips and insight into how to connect with customers, promote a brand and even handle complaints. To read last week’s article click here


When I joined Facebook to keep up with friends back in 2006, it was seen as a closed user group mainly based on friends in universities and colleges keeping in contact with one another. But by the end of 2014, Facebook reported over 1.25 billion users.

A big debate among marketers is how Facebook can grow commercially yet keep its core roots and values of being social – and this the battle for many businesses that are now using Facebook. It is vitally important to appear not overly commercial as constant sales pushes really do not engage the user.  You must understand the tool and the market and understand that it is a live medium so you need to be immediate, responsive and, most importantly, interactive.

Facebook is constantly evolving and, since its floatation back in 2012, has become far more commercially minded. The ambition for Facebook is to be a one-stop shop with plans afoot for a bigger e-commerce platform and even the ability for mobile payments. Imagine the ability to sell your product without even touching your website.

To ensure Facebook’s commercial future the ability to target has been extended further and you can now not only target people by age and location you can also delve into their interests and even travel patterns, all of which makes advertising an even more attractive proposition for cruise companies.

In my next column, I will explain a few techniques I have used to help target cruise passengers and how to keep them engaged.

Simon Law
Cruise & Maritime Voyages, digital marketing manager
Twitter: @sijlaw

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