How Facebook Profit Billions From Your Information

How do you think they make this huge money without a physical product?

1. Information

2. Data

3. You.

Here's a snippet of what I mean.

When you sign up on this platform, you're required to input your information, such as name, email, phone number, country, gender, date of birth(you can lie with the year, but 98% of the time, the month and date is always correct) etc.

When you provide your information, FB would have it stored.

Then you begin to use FB, you like sports pages, follow sports news, engage in sports content, visit places and update your location.

When you get engaged or married and update it on your profile, they take note of that and have it stored.

When you travel and update your status with the new location, they store it.

When you take a picture of your food and upload it for us to eat with you virtually, they store it.

When you go swimming at the pool frequently, they store it.

When you visit many hotels and have your location on, they store it.

When you discuss about things with friends, they store it.

When you make posts regularly about a particular thing, they store it.

They store your month of birth.

They stole your relationship status.

They store everything about you.

What this means is that they have your data. They know who your brother is, they know where your sister lives. They know if your parents are dead or alive.

They know if you love dogs.

Now, we have established that you gave out these information willingly and they have your data, because the platform thrives on data and AI.

Then guys like myself goes to FB on the backend, pay them some amount of dollars to enable me use your data to estaish an emotional communication with you.

Example: I deal on customized club Jersey and I want to sell my new collections of Jeysey that are customizable.

I go to the backend and inform FB that I have this Jersey to sell. I want to sell this Jersey to men between the ages of 27-40 who live in Lagos and are football lovers.

Since you have been engaging in many football forum, discuss and commenting on your favorit club's page, they will release your data to satisfy my request in exchange for the dollars I'll pay them.

So today, I give them $100 so I can make use of your data, Yusuf from Igando is also giving them $200 for data, Vincent from Kuala Lumpur is giving them $300, Emenike from Ogba is giving them $500, Obaino Digital from Alaba is giving them $600, Njideka from Otigba is giving them $700.

In one day, 10,000 different people from Nigeria alone is giving them at least $10 everyday (assumption)

Add Ghana to the list, add Botswana, Senegal, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Jakarta, India, Cambodia, Puerto Rico, England, USA, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Turkey, Sweden, Ireland, etc.

Do the maths.

This is just in one day

Can you now see how data drive decisions in business?

My question for you is, are you collecting enough customer data?

Do you have a database of all your customers?

In what ways are you using the information, to grow your business?

For instance, if you purchase wine from #WineHouseNigeria for your birthday on the 12 of January, I'll keep it on record that your birthday is on the 12th of January.

Next year, I'll sell to you again.

You may not want to celebrate your birthday this time, but I'll inform you that a free birthday cake, a free Hoodie customized in your name and a free DJ to play at your party would be available for you if you purchase wine for your birthday this year.

Or I can simply send you a message two weeks before your birthday asking for your postal address, informing you that we have two bottles of whisky to give you as a birthday gift.

You'll feel special and loved. You'll want to make a purchase, based on emotions.

I'm able to do all of these because I have your data and I'm using it ethically, to grow my business.

This is just one example.

Cake vendors can use this strategy, if they're smart.

So there you have it for today on NSBS Africa.

Data helps to drive specific and highly targeted business decisions.

Always keep records and update your database regularly, so that you don't send an offer of 100k to a customer who's purchase history has a minimum of 500k per purchase.

Thanks for coming to my TeD Talk.

Courage Ngele