Facebook has overcome doubts about whether it can turn a profit, and has turned cash-positive this year instead of in 2010 - as was previously predicted, the social network's COO Sheryl Sandberg said last week at a Churchill Club interview and event in Palo Alto.
The company was on target to bring in $500 million in revenue in 2009, a board member told Reuters. During the interview Sandberg gave no numbers to contradict that figure.
Facebook Targets Larger-than-Google Share
Sandberg, who previously held a top sales position at Google, said that Facebook is targeting a larger share than Google of the $640 billion global ad industry.
While Google focuses on the 10% of ad sales related to demand fulfillment - including helping consumers find products they already know and are committed to purchasing - Facebook tries to grab the 90% of ad sales focused on demand generation, or those ads targeting users who are open to new products and services, Sandberg said.
Sandberg also noted that Facebook has a solid business model aimed at generating revenues from ads aimed at its 300 million users. She added that Facebook has adopted some of Google's methods, such as matching the style of ads with those of searches.
Facebook's biggest draw, Sandberg noted, is its ability to enable two-way social interaction between consumers and advertisers.
"I think when the Internet came out, everyone thought it was going to change marketing and really what happened is a lot of the things that were going on before moved online," Sandberg said (via GigaOm) at the event. "So you used to do a TV ad, you did a banner ad - but it was still that one-way communication of one to many. Our ads are really two-way and really social, that's I think the real difference."
During the interview, Sandberg also noted these additional Facebook facts (via TechCrunch):
- 10 million users "fan" Facebook pages everyday.
- Starbucks has the #1 most popular Facebook fan page, with 4.5 million fans.
- Of its 300 million users, 50% visit the social network daily.
