It seems the world has suddenly booked itself a date at Faceboook!

Your long lost friends, relations living abroad, common interest group members from african nations – all available in one place called facebook. Its where you show your face and get booked for popularity! If you think facebook is a global phenomenon with limited or no influence in Bangladesh, think again. With more than 150 million Bangladeshi members – Facebook in Bangladesh is the biggest tech lifestyle trend to emerge for a long time.

And like all smart trend watchers, Brand Managers should lick their fingers with this new found gold mine of an opportunity. The smartest brand decision of the year for them might be to use “Facebook” as a media to reach to 12-35 target group. After all, an average youth is more likely to spend more time in Facebook than in front of a local TV channel. If so, which one makes sense as a media – TV or Facebook?

The tricky part is how to use it. After all, direct advertisements are not allowed (yet) in facebook nor can local business afford it. So an effective way can be to form a forum or group around your product / brand and invite people to join. For example – the Brand Manager of Nescafe can form a forum called “Getting Jazzy in Dhaka” and it can be a forum for all young executives who are jazz music lovers. The Brand Manager can be the admin and all the members can be the target recipient. Through carefully crafted messages, forum postings, games, applications etc. the essence and message of Nescafe brand can be delivered to very loyal group of people. Thus this can be a brand experience extended.

This is just a raw example, but i am sure the brand managers will be smart enough to recognize the opportunity.