Facebook Credits could be our new universal currency

Facebook is on the verge of finding the elusive answer of how to fully cash in on its 500 million users scattered across the globe. Banner advertising has made them a chunk of change, but hasn’t generated much relative to the size of its audience, especially outside the US. Already in place in testing markets, the new Facebook Credits system could change that dramatically. 

Credits, said to be launching in September, works by filling an account with cash and then using your credits to buy goods within games and apps with one click. There are already individual systems that do this across all the different developers' platforms, but Credits will create one universal system that can be used with any affiliated developer or company’s goods.

You’re probably thinking that’s great and all, but there can’t be that many people paying for virtual goods instead of using their money for actual goods. In the US alone, $1.6 billion was spent on virtual goods in the past year. That number is rapidly growing. And with a new system in place that takes away the need to fill out new forms for every purchase, the barriers to buying are significantly lowered and spending will almost certainly increase even faster.

It’s not only virtual goods that Credits has can be used for. With wide scale adoption, it could create a whole new sales channel. Here are some ideas on how you might be using Facebook in the not too distant future.

Bridging advertainment into sales
Creating entertaining advertising does not always lead to people rushing out to buy your products. But if the advertising itself generates revenue, problem solved. Having a stock of Facebook credits makes users more likely to pay for games or apps. And once using your app, they can buy either virtual or real goods from you with a click. You can of course also simply jump onto the bandwagon of other games and apps where your target already is, selling sponsored items and bonuses within them. The ability to make instant purchases opens up a new realm of possibilities for connecting viral success with sales success.

Creating a one-click webshop on Facebook
You do have to give Facebook a 30% cut of your sales, but you don’t have to worry about setting up and running a payment system or dealing with security issues. Plus, you put your products for sale on a platform where it can be recommended among users and promoted without leaving the site, not to mention all the global sales data that would be at your fingertips. Purchases can be made much more spontaneously with there being virtually no effort required on the user’s part. This would also make running ads on Facebook more lucrative, leading users to buy those products with just a click. 

A leg up for the little guy
Many small business already exploit Facebook for all its worth in getting their name and offer out to consumers. With Credits, it could be both promotion and sales channel, giving them a quick way to get sales going that requires little investment – and a global market to tap into. So a tiny company in Laos with a brilliant idea could potentially rocket to success among consumers in the US thanks to one universal payment system.

The new PayPal
PayPal was once predicted to be the global currency of the future. The system proved more cumbersome than most were willing to put up with, leaving the door open for another player to step in and unify online purchasing. With Facebook Connect being implemented into more websites every day, Credits stands a real chance of becoming a universal currency. Imagine being able to make purchases on websites just by logging in through Facebook – it would be like having Amazon’s one click purchase option everywhere you go on the web. I’ll just give you a minute to ponder the tremendous (and frightening) implications of that. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

Comments

[Stoven Shamrock]

For anybody who spends a dime on online advertising and marketing and doesn’t use an analytics package, I encourage you to have your web designer setup Google Analytics – it’s a free service and solely takes a few minutes to setup
https://www.searchforithere.com