What The Facebook-Skype Deal Means For Your Business

The whole world waited in anticipation for Facebook’s “something awesome” event on Wednesday. During the event, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook now has more than 750 million active users, there by making it the world’s leading social network, and that by some distance.

Google+ is a new kid on the block and it remains to be seen whether it can challenge Facebook’s might. None the less, the good thing is that Facebook isn’t sitting on its current laurels and instead, it’s focusing on bringing in more innovative changes to keep its pole position in tact.

To that effect, Facebook on Wednesday announced a deal with Skype which would allow users to video chat on Facebook. While most users see it as a new feature that removes the need to login to both apps, it has broader implications for business users. In this post, I walk through the new world of business-centric opportunities opened up by the Facebook-Skype deal.

Best of both worlds

Facebook is world’s leading social network and Skype is world’s most popular VoIP service. Several businesses use Facebook as a means to market their products and services and Skype as a means to talk to their customers. Businesses are increasingly exploring the option of using Facebook as a customer service tool. Till date, businesses had to resort to textual communication for all needs.

Skype integration will allow businesses to make real time calls to customers to resolve their queries. In future, it could be used as a channel to do group video chats with a select group of customers.

Personal Touch

Whenever possible, I prefer talking to people rather than sending them a text message or an email. This is because I believe an audio/ video conversation provides an unparallel personal touch. IMO, businesses can leverage Skype’s free calling feature on Facebook to add a personal touch to their customer conversations. It’s often said that ‘seeing believes’ and with Skype video, you can finally see Facebook users before you start believing them.

Simplification

Businesses no longer need to maintain separate contacts for Skype and Facebook. This helps, especially when you have thousands of contacts on each list. Video chat has been around for several years but the concept never picked up with the not-so-savvy Internet users. In contrast, Facebook thrives on simplicity. I’d expect this deal to further juice up the stagnated video conferencing industry.

Endless Possibilities

Though it’s still early days, I strongly believe the Facebook-Skype deal will open up a Pandora’s Box of opportunities for business users. Whether it’s conducting video demos of their products, conducting video meetings with partners or even interviewing potential candidates, video chat on Facebook might provide to be a game changer in several ways.

What do you think of the Facebook-Skype deal? Do you believe it would change the social media landscape for businesses for good? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.

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Nice effort, very informative, this will help
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http://smedio.com Douglas Idugboe

Thanks @donaldpfaff:disqus .

Phoenix3_2006

Interesting details, but I had to do a double-take when you referred to this as opening a “Pandora’s box.” That’s a negative thing–Pandora’s box unleashed horrible things on the world. And it made me stop to think why this may NOT be such a boon across the board.
http://twitter.com/Evoca Evoca

Sure thing. At Evoca we like to see more attention about Skype [Microsoft] and the Facebook-Skype service. Why? We offer easy recording of Skype calls – interviews: http://www.evoca.com/how-it-works/create-recordings/record-skype-interviews/ and conference calls: http://www.evoca.com/how-it-works/create-recordings/record-skype-conference-calls/, including recording of the audio “track” for Skype video calls, whether participant or host: http://www.evoca.com/how-it-works/create-recordings/record-audio-track-of-skype-video-calls/.

When the call recording is done, you get a Skype chat from Evoca enabling you to immediately listen, email the recording to anyone, post it on any website, blog, Facebook, or Twitter, or keep it private. Your recipients and online visitors can playback using any web browser and also any smartphone or tablet, including iPhone and iPad because we auto-detect/stream HTML5 or Flash as required. Learn more at: http://www.evoca.com and How It Works: http://www.evoca.com/how-it-works. Try it free – no credit card required: http://www.evoca.com/plans-pricing/.
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Good work! Thanks for sharing!
http://www.internetbillboards.net Tom George

Hi Douglas, Very nice outlook on this powerful combination. I agree with you that this little match made in heaven should invigorate the video to video segment and does present some good opportunity for better more innovative customer service.