The boundless online power of GAFA: follow the rules or you lose

The Power of GAFA

In 2019, there are three major players that control the market. What are you doing not to miss this train?

The direction that the Internet has taken in recent decades is now irreversible for the future of this industry. It will not be a forever, but to avoid cataclysms, the virtual world will remain governed by the powers now in office for some time from 2019 onwards.

Who are we talking about? Obviously always about them, on the lips of all the media for technological innovations, multibillion dollar fortunes, expansion of empires and even legal cases.

They are Google, Amazon and Facebook, in this article without the fourth member of the elite club, Apple. A club so exclusive that it has its own name, formed by their own initials: GAFA.

Leading the world, these three (minus one) companies are living in constant revenue growth over the years, with an abyssal difference between the beginnings and the present. Looking at 2009 and 2018, here are the figures for gross sales in dollars:

• Facebook, from $777 million in 2009 to $56 billion in 2018;
• Google, from 24 billion to 136 billion;
• Amazon, from 24.5 billion to the incalculable figure of 233 billion dollars.

And as you can see from the linked charts, the trend is constantly on the rise, year after year since the outbreak of their success, without ever a hint of descent.

That’s how these GAF(A) have in their hands the largest share of the web market, forcing anyone in this sphere to play with their rules, under pain of oblivion.

When the game gets tough…

So it seems clear, the only way to act is to always keep in mind these three giants that everything sees and, given the technologies in development, they will be able to predict.

We must live with this fact without being able to question it, but rather work to try to make the most of it to their advantage. Because there are two roads in this scenario:

1. you accept, learn and improve with and on these platforms, working to maximize the results and be noticed among the many rivals;
2. do not accept and then without being used, thus condemning their business to a future far from positive.

This second point does not want to sound like a threat, a way to promote for these companies and even less to question the entrepreneurial skill. It’s just a matter of exposing the facts: the users are in the hands of the GAFA and whoever chooses not to accept it, will throw the hook to fish in the Dead Sea, when the world is concentrated on the Mediterranean.

What can be done then to increase visibility, web reputation and income from these platforms, riding the wave of this (not) timeless success?

How much are you earning on the rise of Amazon?

The graphic does not lie: Amazon is currently the most fearsome company in the tech circle. Its revenues grow at an exponential rate and as a result the business knows no other word outside of expansion. Increasing number of employees, and at the same time of robots, purchases of hundreds of other companies, investments in multimedia streaming and cloud computing and a pool of users of about 300 million people.

From all this, how relevant are the revenues of your business through Amazon? The only answer accepted is “damn too much”, otherwise you have to review your priorities.

First of all, it must be clear that e-commerce will increasingly become the future of retail, with stores playing a secondary role. And second, the biggest player will be Amazon.

Every effort should be invested here, with the largest budget available dedicated to growth on this channel. It’s no longer a question of whether this can be the winning strategy, but of When All This Will End. Because like everything else, nothing lasts forever.

So get rid of any doubt and understand how to create a real, lasting and known value on the e-commerce portal.

The results will not only be in economic fact:

• The online and offline reputation of the product will see a strong increase, as users will have the certainty of value because already tested by other buyers;
• advertising both inside and outside the site will produce important results, with an increase in clicks on the product sold;
• word of mouth on Amazon is an element often used to know whether or not to buy an item and this too can only grow.

And if you’re still not convinced, let the facts speak for themselves.

46.7% of Americans start searching for a product from the Amazon bar, instead of the classic search engine, landing directly on the list of items searched.

In addition, Amazon is at the forefront of the development of new technology at the head of the next upsetting trend: voice search. Anyone who doesn’t want to miss this train, will have to be in arm with the good Bezos.

You are among the top positions on Google pages

Did you know that more than 90% of those who browse the search engine stop at the first page of Big G, without ever going any further? And of this 90%, the look of 61% of them does not go beyond the first three links in the head, thus leaving the crumbs to the competitors.

These are important figures to know, which say that the user has less and less desire to devote time to scrolling through various websites in search of more information or solutions.

It still happens, of course, especially on important issues, but it is not on these small numbers that you do business. The attention is all captured by those who drive the queue of links. Moreover, with the rise of no-click searches, the situation will become even more critical for those who have not done everything to be among the top.

Define a massive plan of action to climb the desired digital peak, keeping the focus on a few fixed points:

• SEO strategy;
• Advertisement targeted on different channels of Google and partners;
• increase in customer reviews;
• constant monitoring of what is happening on their own account in order not to risk a drop in reputation;
• creation of valuable content;
• optimization of the website, both technically and for the user experience.

If you don’t get first in this race, you’ll be last.

How strong is the engagement on Facebook (& Co.)

Speaking of Facebook, it is a must to talk about Instagram, the social platform that is currently experiencing an important organic growth, especially among teenagers up to thirty years, where it is taking the place of the social blue.

At the end of 2018, Facebook had a total of 2.32 billion registered users, which is close to 1/3 of the total world population. And Instagram could not do less, with the wall of the billion broken in 2018.

Engagement on these platforms is all about making yourself known, although the competition is extremely high and ruthless. You must therefore be (or have) experts in the field who know every function and feature proposed by each social.

This is because there is no simple bulletin board or profile to increase visibility on both channels:

• stories, to be used for videos, photos and images;
• live video;
• watch video channel, with a constant increase of active people;
• the latest addition, IGTV.

Therefore, take advantage of every avenue to maximize advertising results and consolidate an audience on the one hand, while aiming to expand it on the other.

And in a long present totally occupied by these huge companies leading the business, the world can only wait to see the new GAFA of the future, and equip itself accordingly.