Facebook Lite Unveiled… Stealing Twitter’s Thunder

Facebook Lite has been the newest Facebook makeover in which the social network has become a lot more simplified. How is this affecting social media optimization? Many believe Facebook Lite has been introduced as a direct competitor to Twitter’s minimalistic look. Before, it used to be that social networks with more applications, options, preferences was better. Facebook was winning that race by far, with hundreds of different applications you could choose from as compared to other social networks which had just a handful. Facebook also had more detailed privacy and profile settings and a variety of options on how you wanted to display your profile. Now marketing has seen the popularity switch from more to less with people enjoying Twitter’s simple look and the idea of a limited character micro blogging service.

There have been some significant changes in the new Facebook. Facebook Lite does not have any applications like the regular Facebook does. Facebook Lite allows you to tag the friends in your network if you mention them in a status update. When you mention a friend from your friend’s list while typing a status message, Facebook Lite provides you a drop down menu of friends with that name so you can tag the friend mentioned. The person who you tagged in your status update is then notified, just like if you tagged a friend in a photo on regular Facebook. A lot of people take time to “get Facebook” when they first join. There’s so many applications, choices, options, features that it can leave someone new quite confused and frustrated. First time I dealt with Facebook I think I had to sit for a good couple hours clicking on random tabs to figure out what they all did and how I get back to where I began from. With experience of using this social network you get a hang of it. I think Facebook Lite is a way to end this problem and provide users with a faster simpler version of Facebook if they choose.

I think this is the first time Facebook  has renovated in such a way so that they can offer two different versions to their users instead of one version that people may or may not like. I say this is smart marketing strategy. It’s like a beginner’s version (Facebook Lite) and an advanced version (regular Facebook) If you can handle and enjoy the complex nature of Facebook, you can go ahead and use the regular Facebook. If you like a simple Twitter like feel to it, then go in for Facebook Lite. I think from the Social Media Optimization point of view, businesses and corporations will prefer the regular Facebook as it gives them more leeway to provide information and entertainment to their followers. Last year Facebook had unsuccessfully tried to buy out Twitter. Since then, Facebook has done the next best thing and copied Twitter’s minimalistic appeal. But even then Facebook’s networking is still quite different from Twitter. People connect with each other on Facebook generally if they are acquainted with each other or are friends. Connections on Facebook depend on one person connecting with another and if they accept, you are then connected to the same network. Then both parties get status information and updates about each other.  Twitter works differently in that you can choose to follow random people or people you know. Anyone you choose to follow is not obligated to follow you back. You don’t have to know them or be friends with them, you follow them if you’re curious enough to want to know about their activity. Twitter has received a lot of publicity for celebrities and businesses using this social network as a way to reach out to their fans while also maintaining their distance.

Twitter and Facebook are both popular social networks that have been utilized by companies for their Social Media Optimization campaigns. There’s not much we can predict about the impact of Facebook Lite at this point. It might be the newest rage or it might just not catch on. It will be interesting to watch and see how much people enjoy using Facebook Lite and what Twitter users have to say about the new Facebook. You can check out Facebook Lite on your own by going to http://www.lite.facebook.com