Page 266 - Foundations of Marketing

Digital Marketing and Social Networking | Chapter 9 233

Going Green

Facebook Praised for Tackling Carbon Emissions

It’s no secret that Facebook and Google are competitors, goals of getting 25 percent of its energy from renewable
particularly when it comes to advertising. Both com- sources by 2015. This report provided information about
panies have a wide global reach and the ability to seg- Facebook’s goals and data centers as well as the car-
ment the market. However, there is one area in which bon footprint from the company’s more than 90 million
Facebook performs better than Google: its carbon Facebook users.
footprint. Facebook’s yearly carbon emissions amount to So how much energy does each user’s Facebook use
approximately 285,000 metric tons per year compared to emit? Facebook has calculated that each user’s annual
Google’s 1.5 million. use is equivalent to the carbon footprint of a medium
As concern for the planet increases, consumers are latte. Unfortunately, with more than 1 billion users, this
demanding that companies become more sustainable. adds up significantly. And while the firm plans to create a
Therefore, the fact that Facebook is more carbon-efficient hydro-powered data center in Sweden, other expansions
than competitors places it at an advantage. Greenpeace will likely increase its carbon emissions in the short-term.
has praised the company for its transparency after Despite these downsides, Facebook’s transparency has
Facebook released a detailed report describing its car- earned it accolades from stakeholders—including environ-
a
bon footprint. In the report, Facebook announced its mental groups.

© iStockphoto.com/CRTd

customer service and create publicity about company products. For example, Zappos posts on
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Twitter to update followers on company activities and address customer complaints. Other
companies are using tweets to develop ideas for advertising campaigns. Samsung claims
that its famous television ad mocking Apple’s iPhone was inspired by comments posted on
Twitter. Finally, companies are using Twitter to gain a competitive advantage. Marketers can
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pay Twitter to highlight advertisements or company brands to a wider range of users when
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they search for specific terms or topics. The race is on for companies who want to use Twitter
to gain an edge over the competition.

Blogs and Wikis
Today’s marketers must recognize the impact of consumer-generated material like blogs and
wikis, as their significance to online consumers has increased a great deal. Blogs (short for
“weblogs”) are web-based journals in which writers can editorialize and interact with other
Internet users. More than three-fourths of Internet users read blogs. In fact, the blogging site
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Tumblr, which allows users to post text, hyperlinks, pictures, and other media for free, has
become a major online destination. The site experiences approximately 18 billion page views
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per month.
Blogs give consumers control, sometimes more than companies would like. Whether or
not the blog’s content is factually accurate, bloggers can post whatever opinions they like
about a company or its products. Although companies have fi led lawsuits against bloggers for
defamation, they usually cannot prevent the blog from going viral. Responding to a negative
review is a delicate matter. For instance, although companies sometimes force bloggers to
remove blogs, readers often create copies of the blog and spread it across the Internet after the
original’s removal. In other cases, a positive review of a product posted on a popular blog
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can result in large increases in sales. Thus, blogs can represent a potent threat to corporations
blogs Web-based journals
as well as an opportunity. (short for “weblogs”) in which
Blogs have major advantages as well. Rather than trying to eliminate blogs that cast their writers editorialize and interact
companies in a negative light, some businesses are using blogs to answer consumer concerns with other Internet users

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