Question

Given Facebook’s competitive advantage, core competency, and business model, is it possible to compete with Google’s dominance? How might it overcome the advantage Google has in the area of search advertising?

Answer 1

Google has become a giant in its industry and has multiple businesses which are dominated by Google such as search advertising, Android OS, App Sales, Video streaming platform etc.

The business model of Facebook is completely different of Google's and they both have competitive advantage in their areas of operation. Facebook is a social media giant and earning huge revenues by selling ads on its platform.

The business model of Facebook is unique and I do not see any near competitor who can challenge Facebook in its area of operation. Google is comparatively much larger than that of Facebook as a company and it has many platforms where they sell ad space for revenue where Facebook has a limited space to sell their ads on.

It is tough for Facebook to compete with Google's sheer dominance as the world population runs to search for any word on Google's search platform and not on Facebook.

Though if I see any nearest competitor who can challenge Google's dominance in near future that will be Facebook. I am sure that with the growing number of users on Facebook's platform and with increase in average time being spent by users at Facebook they will be planning something to increase their revenue and presence in the ads market.

Facebook can overcome the advantage that Google has in the area of search advertising by the following ways:

• Facebook can create a search engine to overcome the advantages Google has in the sphere of search advertising.
• Facebook also has enough resources to build state of the art mobile apps on productivity and utility.
• Facebook has a video platform embedded in its social networking platform, the same can be launched individually as Facebook videos.
• Facebook can try to acquire one of the biggest search engines so that they will not have to start from zero.
• Facebook should try to increase the ads space where it can sell ads and the above mentioned options can provide Facebook with that required space.

Google is big and dominant because of availability of ads space and number of users coming to Google's platform, to counter the dominance of Google, Facebook should also achieve it.