Perched as the king of social networks, Facebook must be pretty cozy right now… if you ignore its massive woe pertaining to revenue. With this thought, Facebook could learn some revenue-improving tips from the successful and failed efforts of other social networks or service providers.

First of all, Facebook should look into promoted posts. Twitter and Youtube both feature tweets and videos that people pay to promote. These “promoted tweets” and “featured videos” allow for the website to generate revenue by requiring payment in order to let people see them. What makes this even better for Facebook is that Youtube and Twitter are less successful in obtaining user information. Facebook has much more information related to its users so the promoted posts would be more geared toward the right audience, and it can charge more per post.

Next, Facebook should add the group video chatting service that Google+ uses for its hangout. However, it should build on Skype’s model of a premium account required for such video chatting. Facebook already has an option for 1 on 1 video chatting, so if people wanted to group video chat, they can purchase one-time, monthly, or yearly subscriptions of a “premium Facebook” service that would include perks such as group video chatting, free trials/tokens in games, reduced ads, and some bonus related to Facebook’s gifts system. This would promote Facebook-related games and gifts and increase revenue through the membership fees.

Also, the mobile advertisement sector of Facebook can develop significantly. Right now, Facebook publishes virtually no advertisements on their mobile application. Even the mobile messaging application lacks advertisements. It can begin implementing the “promoted post” type of scheme that Twitter uses with the promoted tweets or explore other mobile ad possibilities such as banners and ads that appear at some interval as you scroll down. Other mobile applications have implemented advertisement tactics that were significantly unappealing, like the 15-30 second video advertisements by gaming apps, and Facebook should refrain from implementing those to avoid users flocking away. Pandora would be a good model for Facebook to look into as their mobile revenue figures are substantial.

Most importantly, of course, Facebook should make sure they keep their users with them. Two main groups of people aren’t on Facebook yet: Chinese people and under-13 kids. As long as China wishes to keep its internet censors active, Facebook most likely will not expand significantly in China. Thus, Facebook simply needs to make sure that future generations are still interested in social networking and will eventually sign up and become active users. If not, none of the above suggestions would have an effect and Facebook would become a relic (see MySpace).