Yahoo Finance Facebook’s 'Hail to the Chief' profit
Facebook’s (FB) second quarter earnings being released after the close of trading Wednesday will cover the usual topics investors in the social media giant focus on-- user numbers, ad sales, mobile growth, etc. But the company might want to add a special category to its financial reports now: presidential impact. That’s because as the New York Times points out, Facebook has doubled its government and politics team over the past three years to help it grab a chunk of the estimated $1 billion expected to be spent for online political ads in the 2016 race for the White House.
Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task says going for that money makes a lot of sense for Facebook.
“A billion dollars is not small potatoes, even for Facebook, which is generating a tremendous amount of revenue right now,” he argues. “How much of that share will they get? I think it would be the lion’s share.”
Task finds this a match made in heaven because Facebook brings real value to politicians.
“The big thing about Facebook is they know everything about you,” he points out. “And they are going to share that with the political campaigns.”
Plus, adds Task, the company is making it more attractive for candidates to use.
“They’ve added some new features, where there’s a call to action button on the end of a video on Facebook,” he explains. “So the politicians can do a video and at the end you can click on a button, and 99 times out of 100 it’s going to say please donate and one time out of 100 it’s going to say please sign this petition.”
Task feels there’s no question Facebook will have a big impact on the 2016 campaign.
“We saw in 2008 when Barack Obama was a candidate, he really leveraged social media in a way that had never been done before,” Task explains. “And since that time social networks-- predominantly Facebook-- have become a much more important part of how people communicate.”
Task points out that’s already taking shape.
“Facebook also owns Instagram, and Scott Walker’s campaign used Instagram as sort of the walk-up to his campaign,” he says. “And they found that to be very effective.”
And Task argues Facebook is so big, you only ignore it at your own peril.
“Facebook seems to be hitting on all cylinders right now,” he says. “And if you’re a campaign -- whether it’s a political campaign or an advertising campaign for a major product-- you have to be on Facebook now.”
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