It used to cost a lot of money to license a solid Facebook marketing platform, but One Public thinks even small businesses should be able to afford these tools. So today with TechCrunch it launches PageCentrex, a free platform for self-serve management of Pages, ads, Insights, ecommerce, and social CRM from a single interface. For businesses with more money to spend, it offers an enterprise managed service with custom app development.
This disruptive shift to free has been a long time coming. It’s not just deep pocketed brands doing Facebook marketing anymore. The long-tail of local business, SMBs, and fledgling brands have arrived.
Facebook’s marketing capabilities are getting more powerful but also more complicated. With last week’s launch of Timelime for Pages, brands need to be thinking about which posts to pin and feature. Sponsored Stories can now appear in the news feed on web and mobile, and businesses need to know which posts they should pay to amplify.
Real-time analytics, offsite Facebook integrations, e-commerce — there’s too much to handle effectively without tools. One Public’s PageCentrex might not be perfect, but it will probably be sufficient for many.
Enterprises meanwhile need to stand out. For them, platforms can produce somewhat cookie-cutter apps. One Public’s custom app development can help a brand create experiences unique to their business that can work as a supplement to a top tier social marketing platform.
I admire the zeal of One Public’s founder Fahad Khan. It takes guts to try and release such a range of products through a bootstrapped company with just 15 stateside employees and 50 in Lahore, Pakistan.
I’m a bit skeptical he can pull it off, and I typically advise a “niche to win” strategy. However, One Public has worked with some huge clients including Chrysler, Samsung, NBC, and Digitas. We’ll have to wait and see if the enterprise sales can support the free products. But in the meantime, smaller businesses can use PageCentrex to get serious about social without spending much.